my days with you
by kathrianna
Summary: Her past and present had collided once again. She looks at him and she sees her future.
1. Chapter 1

Irises

The skies were a beautiful purple splashed against the gardens of the school. And there were distinct conversations overheads, of what food to eat, of where should they sit, or who is the handsome guitarist of the second band. Sitting along the red chairs outside, he was sitting beside a girl who was fixing her skirts, cheeks tinted and hair newly cut.

"I sometimes regret it," he said as he put the letters of permission down, and he saw her look up in question "Taking up education, making it my entire world," his usually soft features were replaced by his forehead crinkling, the crows of his eyes more prominent than ever "I failed to take care of myself."

In habit, she tucked her hair in and looked at his eyes, and smiled softly "I made academics my world too," The smile was infectious and he angled his body towards her and they both know this feeling; the vulnerability of opening your world to another person.

"I always think it was too ambitious of me to know a lot of things," she continued "Like I can tell you the summary of World War 1 without any internet help,"

"Why did it happen?"

"Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot by Gavrilo Princip,"

"What country was Britain's Protectorate?"

"Belgium"

The smile on his face never left as she rambled on about these events, there was something different about this conversation, different from the ones with his other students, "You are into history?"

She nodded and swiped something from the cellphone she was holding "I got into the Tudors this summer,"

"Really? We're going to discuss that next week," He heard someone call out to him but he was focused too much at the girl beside him

The girl eyes lit up, and then a look of sadness crept up and just like her smile, it was infectious too, he frowned slightly as he waited her words "I think, King Henry VIII had a big brother complex,"

And soon as she said those words, he was suddenly reminded of his own brother. There were no more smiles and laughter. There were just two people numbly looking at the students going in or out of the gate, the strums of guitars across the speakers, looking at their phones that haven't lit up. A connection. A similarity once again.

Her eyes started tearing up, the medals and certificates and the numbers blurred together. The comparisons, the anguish. A pink ribbon amidst blue cradles. He saw how her fingers were shaking.

"My brother used to kiss the picture of his girlfriend every night before he sleeps," He started, and he remembers it all too, competitions, both of them slumped over the kitchen table, racing against one another, bigger salaries. Two burning blazes. He didn't notice his fingers were shaking too.

"It's weird but one night we talked," He shifted slightly, finding the right words "I told him I was tired," he remembered the memory fondly "He sat down, and told me he was tired too,"

Her eyes stopped tearing up. "My eldest brother just got married last month," She slowly found the courage to look at him again "I cried and cried when his wife, was walking down the aisle,"

And it makes the floodgates of their hearts spontaneously break and how suddenly the little talk becomes more than just little. He would talk of the miracles, music, and love; the beauty of the world and she would talk about lust, expectations, regrets; the unpleasantness of the world.

Two parallel lines becoming asymptotes.

When the purple skies turned into a dark blue dotted with stars, she stood up, bowed slightly and bid him goodbye, and proceeded to walk outside the school. The night lamps of the streets fill her vision and the cool air hits her in the face. She was walking, as calmly as she can. But then her chest aches, it was a weird sensation. She was fine before. She was talking with him and how he looked human, and not someone higher than her, vulnerable.

She was fine before. A few minutes ago she was fine. So why? When she took her first few steps away from him, she couldn't breathe. Her lungs were filling with something not air. Some student from her school approached her and asked if she was okay, the paleness of her skin never escaping her. The phantom burns in her chest seized, but as it ended, she coughed and coughed and coughed. It was the violent racking push from throat when she ate too much or ate too less. The nausea was visiting too and she felt dizzy. Still she dared to continue to go home. _"This is just another episode,"_ she thought. Another violent cough racked her body. Yep, just another episode.

Hanahaki Syndrome: People who hold unrequited love have flowers suddenly grow inside their heart and lungs. The victim starts coughing / throwing up petals and over time, full blossoms and thorns. It's noted to be painful and eventually suffocates and kills the victim, although the time it takes depends on the intensity of their feelings.

It may be cured if their love is requited, or the flowers are surgically removed. However, the surgery also takes their ability to have any feelings towards their crush.

A petal released from her mouth like a lost piece of confetti as she coughed, almost as if to say congratulations! She recognized the flower and she put in her palm; it was a pink petal of a carnation. Had it not been in the middle of high noon, and the fact that she was in the school's comfort room, she would have screamed.

All she could do was stare in shock at the petal in her hand. After all, how else was she supposed to react to that? What comes to her thoughts first isn't what to do about her infected lungs, but his gentle expression from this morning.

It wasn't supposed to be any different from the norm; sure she talks to him outside the classroom, having a short conversation or talking about the lesson. He walks through the garden pavilion with a cup of coffee or two on some days. The weather was perfect, the bugs stayed away, and it felt like they were the only people on Earth. No one was around to interrupt as they walked side by side without a care in the world, exchanging stories and laughing at his terrible daddy jokes.

Nothing particularly special happened as far as she could remember. So why was it that when he looked over and smiled so warmly at her, that she forgot to breathe and thought, "I want to be with him forever"?

As if she were being punished by some cruel goddess watching her struggle to come up with an answer, three more petals have fallen to the sink. As she tried to clear her throat, she splashed her face and groaned; she gave in, unable to deny it any longer.

She liked him.

No, "like" doesn't even begin describe the weight of her emotions. It's love. Pathetic; considering how hard she tried to protect her heart. Pathetic, considering there was another before that reverent man, a boy with tired eyes and unruly curls, that boy who made her spit out thorns, that poked through her jugular artery ruining her neck, and not soft velvet petals. A pitiful sound escapes her, a weak laughter as her whole body slumped and she held her head in her hands.

It's like she hasn't learned anything from the people who hurt her. Friends and family coming and going, taking and taking, never looking back to see what they did to her. How many holes and bruises they left for her to quietly patch up, all by herself. How many scars she had inflicted to herself. And now he's about to take what's left, her very life and remaining feelings.

Maybe she was bound to fall for him from the moment they met? The moment he stepped into the classroom, like fate or destiny or the alignment of stars.

As hot tears start to pool in her hands, and she began to shake, all she can think about now are his kind words, his gentle voice, the time they've spent together. As if on cue, more petals come along with stomach acid and she bolted into one of the stalls, clutching the toilet bowl. It'd be one thing if the vomiting was the result of her not eating right, but the sickly sweet taste of the petals make her feel even worse.

The burns subsided after a while and she wiped her wet clammy hands to her skirt, fixed her blouse and wiped her glasses clean, she needed to look fine when goes in the classroom and she lifted her chin a little higher as she heard the click of her heels.

There's a tickling in the back of her throat.

She coughs and coughs but it never goes away, and it's really starting to irritate her, She hasn't taken no more than ten steps away and suddenly there is no air in her lungs, she takes a deep breath that rattles in her throat, and she still can't breathe-

She stumbles out of the stairs and falls to her knees, still coughing and trying to get the petals out, and-

Little specks of blood stains her tinted lips, it's the familiar metallic taste and more petals drift to the ground, stained and delicate, and she grabs one, holds it up to her eyes with a trembling hand, and the tears she repressed dropped as soon as the petal fell.

She just thanks the heavens it's Tuesday today.

When she woke up, she remembered that medical masks were common this time of the year, with how often people got sick, so hopefully it wouldn't be odd if she started wearing one. What's odd is how she never noticed how many people wore one as she rode the train to school: the old, the young, and most of all, her fellow peers. Some wearing the uniform from her school, others from another, all looking rather downcast.

How many also have the disease known as "love" growing inside them?

Today is Wednesday, and as she slipped her bag on and got her beep card, she let out a small breath of air she doesn't know she's been holding.

She wasn't even a quarter of the way through her day or up the stairs as she felt that twisting feeling again, as if something was squeezing at her heart to. The small walk to her locker seemed like the longest road she ever took in her life, it makes her dizzy on top of her damned, and she doesn't even realize that she's so out of it until she bumped into someone. By the time she managed to look up and rummaging an apology at the back of her throat, his firm hands found their way to her shoulders and he helped steady her as she involuntarily held her breath.

"Are you alright?"

Although she just talked to him yesterday, her knees under her striped skirt are knocking against each other and her fingers are trembling as she pulled her school bag's straps even closer to her. Is it because she has become aware about how she felt towards him? Or because of how quick she is to notice the intensity of his stare, full of concern under his glasses as he waits for her answer? Perhaps it's due to how loud she can hear the blood rushing through her ears. Whatever the reason was, she felt another coughing fit coming and instinctively hold her hand over her mouth, the mask trapping and hiding the petals.

"Did you catch a cold?" He tried to get a look at her face but she instinctively avoid him, he said her name gently, his right never leaving her shoulder and his left moved up and down her other, "Are you going to be okay?"

She swallowed the repulsive taste that coated her mouth, she managed a stiff nod and reassured him the best she can, forcing her eyes to smile, but he still seems skeptical, worry evident in his face.

"You didn't get sick from staying too late the other night?" … It'd be a lie if she said no. It's just allergies, the girl adamantly insisted; a common, believable excuse, even if he is a PhD he would believe this pitiful whine. His furrowed brows relaxed somewhat as he leaned back and adjusted his glasses.

"If you say so…" The man shoved his hands into his pockets and they both walk towards the faculty. The young girl never paid attention to how close he was before, and even though he's not in her personal space, she can feel this useless thing drumming away in her chest.

What would it feel like to hold his hand longer? To have his arm around her shoulders, if they dared to take it further? To be closer by his side and bask in the warmth his body had to share? It's not the first time she wondered about it, she can't count the dreams, his eyes has been in, albeit this time not as platonically.

Her body shook without warning and she retched.

Sometimes he thinks her stubbornness will be the death of her, "You shouldn't be at school."

"My mother won't allow it," and at the mention of the woman, the man decided to not to push the subject, lest he has the child suffer a panic attack this early in the morning, where the clinic is yet to be opened and he has other classes to go to.

Upon her insistence, he sighed and patted her head. "Promise me you won't push yourself at least?"

Even with her mask on, he can still see her smile and he heard the all too familiar line of "I can't, but I'll manage,"

With a reluctant nod, he closes the faculty door and looked through the glass pane to see if she can even climb the stairs.

She hurried to the college comfort room, to get rid of the petals that filled the mask, she's unfortunately stuck taking big whiffs of the petals' aromatic fragrance, the damn things starting to itch against her tired mouth.

She got inside the classroom, removed her bag and tried to fall asleep in her chair.

Miss Monty tackles a lesson she is far interested in as she rested her chin against her hand and never one to take notes, she found herself absentmindedly doodling crude little flowers along the edges of her notebook, but despite the talk of history and the Omni present favor she has with the motherly professor, she can only focus on her burning chest.

Now, people may argue that suffocating is far worse, but while physical pain eventually stops and wounds heal, there's no telling how long it would take to recover from being told the inevitable "I don't love you".

It's scary to think about. She has been betrayed, lied to, and thrown away several times before; compared to getting scratches and cuts (and sometimes alcohol and agua oxinada seeping into them), it didn't come close to that feeling of something tearing through and ripping your soul apart. He broke through the walls she has built around herself, time and time again, ever the patient and understanding man he was, and he's one swing away from breaking her unformed glass heart into thousands of tiny pieces.

He is the one in front of the class now. His jazz hands and her classmates are laughing at one of his stories. Is it not ironic? He teaches religion and suddenly he became yours.

Yes, having her feelings crushed is worse. This whole throwing up petals she can handle.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she quietly cursed. It takes everything she has to keep herself from crying, as bile slowly floods her mouth, and she felt the class' eyes focus on her

They saw her decision to forego the mask, not caring anymore, and most of them gasp as petals come from her mouth.

She has to hold it together; she can't break down in the middle of class. In the middle of his class. Her eyes dart to him, with evident horror in his eyes. He doesn't say anything to her; He doesn't even look at her face. He just took a petal and held it in one palm, as he continued on with the lecture.

The eyes of pity bore on her back, Maria was even soothing her back. When she's alone she can let it all out. Just suffer a little while longer and the day will be over soon.

Please, please, please, just don't cry, she begged yourself.

No one in the class was smiling after that.

When his subject ends, the pressure in her head eases up as she made a beeline to the comfort room. She didn't even wait for him to get out of the classroom. After making sure no one was around, she cleaned and washed her mask and mouth out and throw the petals out. While the smell of the comfort room isn't any better, it's refreshing compared to the lingering, perfume-like scent that's stained to her. As she fixed her appearance and put her mask back on, the door opens. And she saw, Adiella enter and smothered her expensive handkerchief to her still bloodied mouth.

"We're eating," Adiella said as she straightened her jacket and sauntered to an open cubicle.

"You know I don't eat,"

" .eating."

Adiella watched as her friend sighed and washed her hands, and suddenly she was holding her hand to her chest.

"It's him? You're throwing up all these petals because of him?"

"No, I'm throwing these up because of Tom." She said in sarcasm.

"Beb," Adiella started as she led the still coughing girl outside, "you need to tell him,"

"Tell him "Sir, I really like you, you have to like me back or I'll die,"?"

The taller girl, slapped her hand to the smaller's shoulder, "Just tell him how you feel, no one really dies of Hanahaki,"

"And risk losing all our conversations and coffee? Risk losing his smiles?"

"Or risk losing your life," Adiella stopped fixed the girl's short hair "Beb, you still have to remember, he's still our teacher, you're still his student. Nothing is going to change that." She laughed slightly at the smaller girl's eye roll "Can we eat now?"

After school has ended, she saw him at the red chairs they have been accustomed to talk to. He makes her sit beside him.

There's no way he can miss how many times she keep putting her hands over her mouth as if she's about to hurl any second.

The older man tried to find the right words again "Are you alright? You, purged petals."

 _You're fine. You're fine. You have to be. Kathrina Angelica you have to be fucking fine._

His lips purse and she felt the guilt creeping up her spine as he stared down the top of her head.

"Hey, is there anything you need to get off your chest?" His question catches her off guard. His eyes probe hers for answers. Of course, he notices the way she clasped her hands together nervously in her lap and how her gaze drop to her phone, at the students, anywhere but him. In the corner of her vision she can see his quiet desperation.

Her heart throws itself against her rib cage.

She wants to tell him she loves him.

"You have people who care about you," he gently reminded her, speaking softly. "We can't help you if we don't know what's going on."

But he can't possibly feel the same way. He's only going to hurt you. He'll crush your affections with those gentle hands of his. Those firm, steady hands covering her own. "I'm your teacher, aren't I? It's alright to ask for help. You can talk to me if you need to."

And he'll kill her with them too.

At some point, all she could hear was white noise and see static. Earlier's images and thoughts play like they're on a film reel. How would her body look once those flowers freed themselves? Little blossoms reaching towards the sun as her flesh decays. How much is it going to hurt? How long will it be? Can it be worse than hearing Sir tell her how he really feels about her?

It can't be. Just guessing what words he'd use makes her chest twist tightly.

She flinched; that's the first time she's ever heard him raised his voice. It was unlike him and suddenly she started crying. She hates getting yelled at.

"I'm sorry Sir St-,"

A deep sigh bellowed from the man, and he raised his palm to his wrinkling forehead. "No, it was my fault, sorry for prying so much." He stood up from the seat and walked towards the entrance of the auditorium. He pauses in the doorway before looking over his shoulder. "Get well soon and rest up, alright?" He forces a smile that even she could tell is strained. "You are exempted for the seatwork, please don't worry."

"If you're free tomorrow, Sir," She began hesitantly "can we talk? Near the clinic so…" She struggled with the words "So when I…retch again,"

"Tomorrow. I promise."

This time, she wake up early and leave early. Go to the nearest 7-11 and order a stupid French Vanilla cup with two packs of sweetener and sugar. Not by choice of course, but she can't help that her body's built to rudely wake her up at the crack of dawn to keep her from choking to death in her sleep. Bolting to the school's comfort room, she's hunched over the toilet and successfully cleared a total of two petals from her throat, but nothing more.

Swallowing doesn't help either. Luckily that's where hands and stomach acid come in, as unpleasant as it is. It starts to hurt this time, though, and the tormenting shocks are enough to make anyone stop. Her fingers are getting sweaty and panic seizes her body but she has to do this.

And in horror, she pulled three, four, five flowers with full stems out. This time, the petals actually have blood on them. It's a few minutes after realizing that fact that she tastes it too.

Why has her Hanahaki already gotten this far after just two weeks? It's supposed to take at least months to get this bad! Would it regress if she stopped seeing him? No, that's not even possible; not only he'd only persist if she started avoiding him; they are required to meet twice a week. Wait, more importantly, Hanahaki can't turn back at all. So that means it'll only get worse even faster? In her haste to clean up her mess, her anxiety only multiply until her head pounds with frustration.

She can't go on like this.

There was only one solution.

Take all the flowers out.

Sacrifice this. All those memories.

Sacrifice him.

Even though she kept telling herself there's no way it's mutual, that it won't happen, that it could never happen, she still doesn't find the idea of having the love blossoming inside her forcibly removed. This is love.

 _You really don't want that taken from you._

And there he is near the clinic, coffee in hand, his phone in the other. The bespectacled man meets her eyes when she walked by and waves. She's thankful her mask hides her small smile as she waved back and continued into the building, head down.

The day is drawn out far too long for her liking. Had it always felt like that? Even as she spaced out, her eyes are drawn to the little flowers near the garden pavilion.

She wonders if there are Carnations in the small bushes.

Her grip tightens around her phone. Her feet refuse to move no matter how many times she screams at them in her head. The fear of impending rejection bites at her Achilles' heels, keeping her rooted. But it's not like time, the world, or the Hanahaki will wait for her to get her shit together. She forces herself to march down there.

The garden pavilion is weirdly absent of the usual traffic of students today, although there are still a few lingering around, eating their lunches or on their laptops. It's not hard to find Sir Stephen sitting on the benches, taking shelter from the harsh sunlight. When she takes a step out from the covered walkways, she can practically feel those damn flowers poking at her from the inside. They can't wait to bask in its light with her.

The thought only hinders her for a few seconds before she lifts her head and meets him. Might as well make her choice today while the weather's nice, regardless of the pollen and morning dew in the air.

"Hi, there," he greets nonchalantly, but his eyes give him away. He's holding himself back from starting an interrogation. She can't blame him. She says hello back and hold a hand over her chest, hoping that she doesn't cough while he asks her what is happening to her.

He plays with his fingers as he searches for his words. "Could you… take your mask off?" Her entire body stiffens. He takes his hands out of his pockets and reaches out to her school bag. "Flower petals sure do get everywhere, don't they?" He holds up a dried pink petal, slightly yellowed from time, but all its veins still visible and its red streaks all the more striking under the light. "You… have Hanahaki, don't you?"

No use fooling a man who has seen more than her.

"At first I thought it was some kind of perfume, but… you don't wear them" He lets the breeze take the expired bit of plant away and watches it twirl in the wind before returning his attention to her.

"Take your mask off," He eased lightly, patting the seat next to him. "It'll be easier if you start coughing up more." At first the student thinks he's taking it rather calmly until she see his hands curl up into fists. Is he that frustrated?

She fulfills his request, seeing as how she doesn't need to hide it anymore. He comfortably slips his hands back into his pockets and shifts his weight to one leg. "Who did you fall in love with?"

Why does everything have to be so to the point and blunt? Why does this have to be so fast? He did her a favor of bringing it up, so it's time to stop running in circles. She has to accept her fate; she had always been running away.

Get it over with, already.

After letting a few moments of silence pass to steady her breathing, she opens her mouth and…

… And it's done.

Sir Stephen blinks in surprise, clearly not expecting her confession to be for him. Kath's heart's going crazy and she's just as surprised at herself for doing that. It just felt like the right choice in the heat of the moment. Minutes pass and he's yet to move or utter a word, unsettling her. He looks away and towards the sunlight. Anxiety possesses her entire body.

She didn't brace herself to get rejected. She didn't need to

"I'm sorry. You're my student."

"I know," She needs to leave. She has to leave right now, why isn't she leaving why aren't her legs moving why can't she why why why whywhywhywhy–

"I'm already engaged…"

She never had a chance to begin with. It feels like her chest and throat are on fire as she run.

That's what she's best at. Running.

She can feel more flowers blooming all over her lungs and heart, vines constricting and wrapping around them before shooting up her throat. She heard him shout after her; is he chasing her?

Flowers get stuck in her throat and she wheezes, blood filling up her mouth as she reflexively cough. A couple burst past her teeth and she managed to flee to the end of a hallway where there weren't any students on the first floor. Her exhausted body has hit its limit and she tumbles to the ground, the flowers continuing to shoot out like a machine gun. Her brain yells at her to do something, anything, to prolong her life, and she's desperately yanking them out the best she can.

It hurts. More than the time of thorns and weeds. It hurts. This hurts.

However, each abrupt shock of pain is nothing. Sir Stephen's apology plays on loop and her agonizing screams don't do anything to deafen it. Even as the flowers' roots dig into her chest and spread, it's not what's causing her heart to rip in two. He never thought about her the same way. He never stayed up at night, nor had his dreams constantly invaded by her. She has never haunted him, the way he had haunted her. He never felt as happy as she did to be around him. He never felt the same, when they debate over silly historical events. When they sip coffee in the cold mornings. When he takes her trembling form in his arms.

 _He never loved you. He never could and he never will._

Her vision's getting dark and blurry, her head's pounding, her ears are ringing and she can't breathe anymore. Her lower jaw keeps getting pushed down as the bouquet grows, to the point where she thinks it's going to break off. With each breath, she can only smell those vile flowers as her arms drop to her sides. There are so many cuts all over her palms and they're soaked with blood and water; her hands only slip on the stems when she tries to take them out.

This is it the final push.

And at last, her heart and lungs are consumed by the flourish of blossoms.

The seeds of love have been reaped.


	2. Chapter 2

_My Days with You_

 **Acknowledgment  
** _To everyone who has called my writing holy;_

To you who had swallowed a falling star; with your childlike eyes and your distant smile;  
the fire of my blood.  
the air in my lungs;  
 _you, only you._  
the ocean to my sky,  
the sun to my moon  
 _my everything.  
_ my light, my downfall

 **Forest**

One day, our love will be _enough_ to grow trees that will loom over citadels and pariahs, and in their barks, we will carve in the names that ever hurt us. 

**Envy**

Envy had nothing;  
so she killed a woman who had everything.  
 _  
Envy was envious._

 **untitled**

my biggest fear  
is becoming like you  
and I pray to God  
every single day of my life  
that it will never happen  
you forced dirt down my throat  
and now I am trying to grow irises  
where you planted weeds.

 **Love**

Our love was the kind that stretched out to the boundaries of the earth and came back with a heart-wrenching and resounding crash.

\- _Everything has its limits._

 **Patron**

You are my days, my months, and my years. They will find traces of it, in the little vehicle of the piers, of kids scampering through the staircases, in red vests. In punches through envy, through the scattered needles of embroidery. I am beguiled that I never got to say goodbye. 

**November 12**

I leaned into your hand and I felt warmth, I felt your fingers threaded to mine and I knew it was going to hurt having to let it go. And it did, it really did. One day, just one day I wish I could've held them a little longer, a little stronger. 

**My Dearest**

Those days were so long ago  
when each touch felt so clumsy and new  
we've gone so far from where we have been  
the pain we feel now is a scar that's fading.

 **Farce**

May the gods forgive the blood on the hands of our fathers, thinking that one divine person must be glorified.

 **Creation**

You made me into a poet that spoke with the fervent language of the multitudes.

 **Achilles and Briseis**

The last thought of your lover would be the flaxen hair that rests upon your shoulder; the last thing you kiss is her lips hand served by the sun god himself.

 **Dear You**

The great future in front of my eyes

is the happiness within your own

For it to stay like this forever

I will always offer a prayer.

 **Argentum - Salvaging Euphoria**

I still can't write as well as he plays the piano - but it has always been like this I write and it's about the sun Icarus loved so much, a diminuendo of serotonin, puffy eyelids and leftover coffee, how it spills on your blistering heart.

But he plays and it's spring: the language of Aphrodite. Nervous hands and midnight longings, of that one time your heartbeat with the speed of something you know you can catch but don't want to. It leaves bruises on your thighs and colors in your eyes.

I write and it's bitten fingernails, blood that binds, of volcanic ash on your tongue, it's in the way he locks the door, looks at me in the eyes and his bed dips, it's in the way you want something you can never have. It is the warnings, premonitions and conjectures you tune out.

But he plays and it's the hues of blues, fingers tracing bodies like perfect stencils. And he keeps playing and playing, his keys ring with zeal while I keep writing and writing this stupid fucking poem and I still -

I can't write as well he plays the piano.

 **Stamp**

I've reached my destination but my address is different.

 **Verb**

Hate is a verb. Hate is an action word.

 **Golden Boy of the Capitalized World**

Ask her if she loves him, the golden boy who left silver scars on her back. She has burned for him, drowned for him and she fell for him. Fell from the heavens themselves. So ask her if she loves him, and when this mortal ichor flows from the raw wounds at her shoulders, do not be surprised. Ask her if she loves him, so when this saltwater tears cascade and her lungs fill with something, not air, let these burns remind you of how much she craves his touch.

 **Storm**

You said you like storms, so I let your tousled curls and tired eyes in. Turns out you can only handle a little rain and I was a typhoon.

 **Lessons in Discontent**

He didn't really want to end this. He wanted to give everything.

She laughed and said "Push me higher!" so he did... but she shook her head.

"No. Push me higher,"

 **Abuse**

Just because you are damaged does not mean you have the right to damage other people.

 **Lily of the Valley**

You fell in love with sunlight, so when night came you didn't know what to do.

 **Double-edged**

If anything, you have to say sorry for making me happy. That's what made me, me. _You made me so happy._

 **Apraxia**

I keep reaching towards something impossible; I keep reaching towards you.

 **Names and Letters**

Names have savage power. Words as fickle or as measly as they are having the ability to change, to create, to define and limit and negate.

A single letter is stronger than all the swords that are polished and cut to perfection in the world, mightier than even the most powerful of kings and tyrants, as great as the Divine themselves. A letter shapes and brings the unsaid into creation. A letter erases the wondrous world, it is merciless. It is violent. It reduces the blue planet to nothing, rendering once-vibrant plains grey as ash and cinders that are blown away by the wind and the sun the epitome of warmth into a lusterless, pallid thing.

And yet a single letter is enough to also tame a sinner whose heart has been tainted with anger, sadness and grief, it changes his beliefs which turns him into someone good, appreciated, and pure. A letter is capable of giving happiness and love. It is forgiving. Benevolent. It gives a child born out of hate and lust, a home in which she grows up to be needed and cared for, it gives even the most broken heart to learn how to trust and let go again.

Which reigns triumphant? The power to capitalize and make or the power to write only in lowercase and destroy?

 **Passion**

I don't write to you anymore nor do I write for you but I still write – I still do, and every word aches for you.

 **Octaves**

And I think I wanted to touch your hands more than the keys on the piano.

 **Stratum**

My body didn't feel anything with him, my heart felt it first.

 **Rendezvous**

"There are boys who make you carve their names on the tops of your thighs and the collars of your bones, but there are the special ones who imprint their musky smell into the pads of your thumbs and their heat onto the fragments of your skin like he was meant to be there because he was supposed to be there. Your heart knows it so as the bundle of nerves between your legs, yet the world did not dare acknowledge it. So you are left with a boy who keeps one piece of yourself because what else could he take? Certainly not your innocence but something deeper. You and only you,"

 **Purpose**

You are a crayon, get out of the toolbox.

 **Deaf**

I wish my mother could hear it, our love was my song.

 **Kiss**

He kissed her as a warrior, then as a lover and then as broken man. Finally, all three at once.

 **Human**

Contrary to popular belief it's unwise to temper creatures of flesh and bone and mason it to steel.

 **Taciturn**

1\. We meet and it's in the hallowed halls of blue and white, little pudgy fingers opening a pack of 64-crayons. Two ribbons in my hair and a blue watch on your wrist. We meet and for the first time. There is a beat. There is a melody.

2\. Two little pinky fingers, entwined. Years of promises that was never meant to be. Years of waiting and waiting and waiting. There it is. The hate, the guilt, the pain. Everything you are not supposed to feel. Everything he promised you not to feel.

3\. This is what first love truly means. You did not break my heart. You merely set the expectations for everyone else that will surpass you. You did not break my heart. You merely took my voice, which spoke of fire and rain, of Venus and Mars. This is what first love truly means.

4\. Time has scratched away everything else, the scars on my wrists and the medals on your neck. Did you cherish yours like I did mine? I clearly hear your voice like you're still singing our song, of a little green notebook, a silent goodbye, a kiss that had never happened.

5\. This is our fate so no one is to blame. Though many years have come and have passed me by; if you're able to truly be content, will you please remember that day once again? To the little boy who had stolen my voice, may you always be smiled upon.

 **Letter Song**

Going back to that place hurts painfully  
And I'll cry because of the words you told me  
So I'll ask you to change gently  
These tears into a new memory.

 **Partner**

Whenever I see you smiling at me, smiling because of me; I feel that we are so much more.

 **Blessing**

You were my blessing disguised in equations and opinions and I was your sin disguised in heartbreak and uncertainty.

 **Him**

You see the notes on the score and you think of him, you see the lines of your notebook and you think of him, you see lilacs and you think of him, you see the word "what if" and you think of him.

 **Universe**

Calling you my lover would always be an understatement, calling you my world was barely scratching the surface. You are my universe. You are my everything.

 **Hyperopia**

We are all farsighted. We give importance to those things that are far from us while we neglect things that are near to us; only to realize their value when they are out of reach later on.

 **April**

I can't imagine who

Or what I would be right now

If you have never found me.

Loving you saved me

And I'm still utterly amazed

That I got lucky enough to meet you.

 **Inhale/Exhale**

Sometimes on the days you apply lipstick on your chapped lips and open wide, you let out a giggle. A memory as clear as day. That one time of fervent pressing to the door, on soft sheets that smell of his musk. Your heart spilled on the covers of his hands. Inhale. And his hands guide yours to the waistband of his boxers. Exhale. And you know this is how it starts. Inhale and his fingers thread through your newly cut hair. Exhale. And you look at him and suck.

 **Waiting**

I hate waiting and you know that…but if being with you means waiting…then I'll wait as long as forever.

 **Inheritance**

My mother tells me, "If you're depressed then stay depressed," and I fall silent because those words have been etched into my adulthood after slaps that left welts on the side of my cheek and a scream in my ears that has never stopped ringing and

I have my mother's talents, I have her hair, her eyes and I have her love for writing and every time I lose control of my temper I am afraid of who I will grow up to be because what if one day my child will scream out in her room, mouthing words that don't have any sounds but will never stop and

Your father has a breathtaking smile and you're twice as handsome but he made you feel so lost, so angry, so pained, I was sixteen the first time I met him, he presses the back of his hand to my cheek, and he looks at you with such hatred, such spite, such envy, and he has the same smile and curly hair as you, he leaves the same way you tried to leave me and you can see other people's weaknesses with the same sniper-like accuracy and you once cried into my school blouse because you hated being able to hurt people the way he's hurt you.

why do we carry

nothing but the skeletons

our parents buried?

 **Habit**

As of now it has been looking at you without anyone noticing.

 **Our Little Lives**

He told her he was the best of women, but she was not.

 **Unseen**

I wanted to kill myself and you were yelling about my grades.

 **Baggage**

If we couldn't carry our dead inside us; we would be so empty.

 **Words**

I said I love you forever…and I really meant it that time. Now I realize, that was my downfall, a figment of my imagination.

 **Needs**

You want closure, he doesn't.

 **What if**

"You are the boy they have warned me about, not the little snip of a little man who took away my voice, or the my first love who had kissed me by the hanging gardens of the centuries, no it is not my golden boy either, it is you. You and I, and no one else,"

 **Little Sister**

You are the little beat of my heart, broken down ruined empty but still resounding, you are the color of my writings, holding innocence and simple things I do not possess anymore, you are the hand that I hold through all this pain and happiness, you are my solution.

 **Nostalgia**

Of childlike eyes and fair lips, she is the reminder of your true innocence, before the world was too harsh, too firm and too overbearing for the both of you. You see her smile and the winds of nostalgia bring you back. In her beauty and divinity, you see fortitude.

 **Wish**

I wish

I can only see you

As a human

Made of flesh and bone.

I wish

When I look at you

I don't see proses

Made of words and feelings.

 **Decisions**

There are two types of passion. One is the desire of being something humongous that the world wouldn't fit you in its drifting continental plates and the other would be the silent underwater troves that dare rip apart the world's core and extinguish its flame.

You don't know what to choose anymore.

 **Delusion**

All you can write is a litany of I know it was real, I know it was real. I know it was. I know it was. I know. I know.

 **My Days with You**

Her past and present had collided once again. She looks at him and she sees her future.

 **Patria**

The flames of revolution will forever lick the wounds the world has inflicted.

 **Comfort**

I wanted to comfort you while you were crying but the arm I reached out was trembling.

 **Regret**

He's someone who can give you feelings that can consume you I guess. The passion, desire, all the greatest things in the world; the heartbreak, the lust and the danger, all the worst things in the world.

But upon realization, he wasn't really consuming, I just got consumed.

 **Story**

I can only write tragedy stuck into the tresses of your name; darling, our story is not about candies, kisses and all the sweet things you have come to hold, our story is about hiding, pain and longing.

 **Feelings**

you fell in love with the person

and he fell in love with the feeling,

there is a huge divination across both.

 **Hero**

Lips ripe as the berries in June, red the rose, skin pale as the light of the moon, gently as she goes. His heart burns as much as his smile. It burns you, it burns them, and it has burned horizons. His voice, lit up a flame that you thought disappeared, he is assurance.

 **2013**

Deep inside of me, I fear

Life was never crystal clear

I said "I love you"

But you never had a clue.

I guess I try to move on

But that battle wasn't won

Love wasn't fair

It was too much for me to bear.

 **2018**

There is this feeling of anxiety running through my veins and it has become my blood; for life is a crossroads of destiny, even the steadiest of waters have ripples if you look closer, if you look deeper. Three words lost on my lips, eight letters your eyes could not see. Three words, eight letters you could not feel.

I wanted to walk away, like your footprints on the sand now washed away, but my feelings are a torrent of "what if's" and "maybe's" and I fear they will be blood on the field now fading away. Love is still too much for me to bear.

 **Renewal**

But yes I will heal, for these cracks you have made against the many that I already own will be soon filled with love, maybe not the one like yours, a love enough to drown me till no bubbles come up, of a love that scorched my soul till no end. Not yours but still love.

 **Acceptance**

There's only one thing I know about this love that is pure and true. It is wrong.

This love is only meant for broken souls.

It is for the lowest.

 **Eclipse**

His love roared louder than her demons.

 **Icarus**

There is an Icarus that has flown too close to the sun; it was you. You, the harp bringer of words, clean and objective, details besmirched of pure technique. You, who have hidden so much pain and hurt, are still ready to give. One day those wings won't melt anymore.

 **War**

Her hair smells like jasmine and love and peace and he reeks of blood and tears and pain.

 **Thoughts on a moonlit night**

There are problems ahead  
Love, grades, money and it's all in your head  
there is coffee on your table  
your mind, your mind and your heart are unable.

To cope with a failing test, red marks on papers  
curls and thoughts scattered with twists and letters.

your hands are nervous, gripping and shifting  
your proses are stripped, devoid of any biting  
the air around you is cold and uninviting  
the notes scattered; messy, plain, lack of understanding.

The narrative ready to break  
this is all a trifling act. A capricious affair  
these are not your thoughts on a moonlit night.

Your thoughts are heavy, laced with thoughts of heartbreak, failure and it scares you,

You have to stop  
You have to  
You have to.

Stop.

Remove all that. The notes, the feelings, darling you know the rules and strictures. Before it consumes you. Remove it.

These are not your thoughts on a moonlit night.

 **Silence**

I'll keep loving you.

Because it's not a sin to love you.

Because I will keep loving you in silence

There is nothing wrong with that I hope.

 **Satisfied**

They could've had it all. They could have sailed the seas and ruled the world.

But they didn't.

 **Writers**

Writers are terrible people.

Break us and you will forever be immortalized on paper. How your touches meant the world and more. How your kisses meant we are almost home. How your arms have been our strength and shelter. But once you tear our hearts in half. There is only fire.

 **Lessons in Serendipity**

1\. Know my face even in a crowd, remember me. Even if I would be parted from you, know my voice that had removed your torment, your pain. Know my arms that had held you, that have given you warmth through cold deserts. Know my heart, for it has loved you.

2\. Don't ask me to promise not to leave, because I would never, but I couldn't stay. I love you. But I have never known love to be selfless, I cannot love you and you alone.

3\. It was so selfish of me, asking you to stay, when I cannot live an eternity.

4\. When I bleed, and I will, when you stand by and find my knees bared and naked, crusted with blood and the thorns of the roses they threw at you: don't venerate me, for those who care, my blood isn't wine, for those who care, my body is not bread. But I am a man. I am just a man.

 **Blue**

How will you describe the color blue to a blind person?

It is the color of the ocean of happiness that we all cannot baptize ourselves in. it is the color longing, of sadness, of calmness. A myriad of blessings and sins to be. How we begin and end our day. Alpha and omega.

 **Sins**

It will start over again. All those longing glances, those quiet tugs of clothing in the dark. Bedrooms of soft mattresses. We are their young Gods. Their young fallen angels.

 **Time**

I wonder what our life would have been if we had more time.

What would be our verses and what would be our rhymes?

 **Transcendence**

That voice sounds nothing like Marius', but it was also soothing and warm; like a hymn, something that strikes into her very heart and the marrow of her bones, that voice set something in her, something that wants to take flight.

 **Answer**

But isn't it sad how we've moved on from all that we had?

Sometimes I still miss it, all of the good and bad.

 **Martial Law**

We are the aftershocks of an earthquake that happened years ago.

 **To the one person I call home**

You are not one and twenty yet

That time will come.

When we don't have to hide

Our feet under the tables

Our hands firmly on our sides

That time will come. Surely

Indefinitely. Maybe not or maybe.

 **Country**

There is no more hope for the Pearl of The Orient, how justice and education are now only reserved for the privileged, how a paragon university of Catholicism has become a husk of its former self. Of how democracy has failed the demos; the blood of our martyrs wasted.

 **Assassins**

The first thing he sees is a little girl, with long brown hair, with cold eyes and yet has a charming smile.

"You are a fool to feel something, Moratsu, straighten your face."

Kayanu was always right, Nether gate raised broken children, psychopaths and stillborn, never fools.

 **Rosary**

A mother receives a bouquet of 53 roses, although some wilted, some missing its petals. There is a taciturn feeling of regret and regret and regret. A mother receives a bouquet of 53 roses after years of not. A mother loves.

 **Egea**

Your faint and tortured screams were not heard by your daughter grazing the woods with pure love in her eyes.

 **Name**

You are not the oldest and the wittiest but you have tenacity in your voice and self-hatred in your hands.

 **Assumption**

My body is sacred, made by our Divine, Himself. It is pure, holy and unscathed like how Daniel survived with roaring lions whose manes reek of hunger and bloodlust. My mind is empowered by an unwavering spirit who is a paragon of wisdom and bears great blessings, found and has yet to find. My soul is a server, devoted to blessed Sabbaths; it sings of praises and fiddles with treble sufferings. My heart is filled and satisfied, full of love to receive and to give. Love is not a finite source.  
 _  
Love is that special little thing, for you find it in the little nooks and crannies of me._

You see it in my eyes, how the eternal refuge is there residing across the streaks of them. They soften, they cry and they plead. You see it in my lips, how it speaks of reverence of our most holy, it speaks of gratification of the people around me. They quiver, they tremble and they support you will see it across my hands, made to serve, to pat back on, to wipe tears away. They graze, they comfort and they had roughened.

 _I am created for love because I am created by love._ I have all the remnants of God. How He loved so hard, He gave up His only Son; how He freed the people of the weariness of their chains, how He gave us the messiah.

I am the proof of his love. I have parts of Jesus. How He had suffered, how He smiled through all his premonitions, of judgement. How he was willing to go through these ordeals by far, to save you, to save us, to save me.

I am the proof of his love I have the pieces of the Holy Spirit. Guiding and embedded throughout the darkest periods of the mortals, a signal of the rebirth of a once broken world, and may it's light bless us forevermore in our endeavors. I am proof of its love.

 **Assumption**

My body is not a temple of holiness; it has been bruised enough for scars that never fully heal; flesh pulled apart at the seams, a mouth that still bleeds blood, fingertips that have known too much.

My mind is a feeble thing, it does not represent a kaleidoscope of symbols, and it is not as vast as the stars of the Milky Way. Only of scorching coffee down my throat, and harsh strokes. It cannot endure.

My soul has been broken, once, tenths, dozens, how does it manage to not leave is a miracle yet to be unraveled, maybe it did already.

My heart is not finished; there are only remnants of spoiled sheets, the musk of his skin. Love is a finite source.

 **I lost**

May you forever be smiled upon, dear child of wisdom, for you belong to that Angel of Music.

 **Solitude**

At the end of the day, shrapnel is shrapnel, and I am alone with the things I have done.

 **The Doomed Lovers of the Wings of Freedom**

He can still feel her fingers; warm, dainty and soft, with the scent of faint strawberries and fucking sunshine.

 **Anatomy of Magic**

1\. I can count on my two hands the stories that have not impact other people's lives, my stories that do not imprint on their skin, a trance of writing my words on scraps. I can count them all and still have fingers.

2\. This is how I write. A tapestry of alchemy transmuted unto paper. Like a seraph in the wind. A pattern of deceit and blessings.

3\. I still have nine fingers left.

4\. Writing started with a silver razor that changed into a silver nib: this is how catharsis started and built. A foundation for its stratum, created neither by my hands nor my mouth, just my heart that has ink for blood and metal as arteries.

5\. I still have nine fingers left.

6\. This is how I want to be remembered, with a warrior that will surpass my buried body laid six feet under, or with pages that will be left untouched, salvaged and full of prose on its corners. Yes. This is how I want to be, an afterthought of the things that will surpass me. A legacy. Trying to make something out of nothing, making everything out of something.

7\. We are nearing the end and I still have nine fingers left.

8\. Everything is sacred and untouchable to a writer but at the same thing it isn't, there are times I wonder if it will ever be enough. My works are the purest form of self – taught: archaic and glorified.

9\. I count one finger.

10\. It is reality, the story each of us has. You strip down my works, remove its embellishments and beauty and you are left with simple words that fade into simple letters. You are left with the truth. You are left with something plain and hard-hitting. A story I have been ashamed for years.

 **Expectations**

You were only six when tremendous amounts of pressure were put on your trembling shoulders that weren't ready to hold them.

Nine years later you are exhausted.

.you are always exhausted.

 **Bones**

Loneliness was a fracture that never healed quite right.

 **Smile**

She saw his smile and there was nothing to do but fall in love.

 **Speechless**

I am a writer but when it comes to you I run out of words to say.

 **Writer's Block**

There are times when the tapestry of magic I possess shatters  
there are times the fine-spun thread unravels and they are, are just scattered pieces of yarn  
they don't sound lovely nor do they look lovely.

/ _this is how you break a soul that slept on rusted metals._

There are times where I cannot write anymore  
I don't feel anymore  
Those are the times where I don't know where to start  
And my chest tightens and my heart wants to stop.

A true writer cannot not write  
I am not a true writer.

 **Soul**

God has given you thirty-six souls to treasure, to cherish, to love, and to hold. God was not greedy this time and you thank Him.

 **September 3**

I know that in time, I will find a way to ease the pain

I hope that I'll be able to sing with you again.

 **Parseltongue**

You are nothing special - a lanky boy with pale skin and glasses, but I know I loved you. The " _you"_ in my proses.

You do not remember me the way I remember you, but we were only kids with scarring hearts and wrists against timeless expectations that still proceed to swallow us whole.

You are a language I am not fluent in anymore but I still know how to read.

I don't know why you smile anymore but I do know you are happy by the way your grin is written in your eyes and you ramble on and on. I don't know why you laugh anymore but I do know how deep your voice was, I still know that faint music in my ears, it was the most beautiful that I heard.

I don't know why you hurt anymore but I do know how you punch walls and the way I kissed your cracked knuckles. I still remember how you screamed at the top of your lungs in the quadrangle.

I don't know your life anymore, if you still scream at night, the razors you have rusted, or the way you dumbly smile at an online game or the way you sleep, but I do know, somehow. Somehow I was there.

\- No closure is closure, 111214

 **Broken**

In his years to come, he thinks he deserved better. But a millennium without her, makes him realize they both deserved better than this.

 **First Love**

Before I fell in love  
with flaxen hair  
or slipper of glass  
or wings dusted with glitter  
with hair to the floor  
twelve dancing shoes  
amethysts that shimmer.

I fell in love with you.

Before I fell in love  
with pressed flowers  
the stage of the theater  
with every twist of every letter  
statues of a marble man  
and the notes of the piano.

I fell in love with you. 

**Wordplay**

It wasn't meant to be you and me.

It wasn't meant to be you.

It wasn't meant to be.

It wasn't meant to.

It wasn't.

 **Sissi**

Empress of the centre and the stars, that is what they call you, tendrils of hair to your back, a corseted waist, and lost things; death lays you down to sleep with a kiss on the lips, a promise of everlasting.

 **Why**

Why  
regret  
regret  
regret?

Because  
yesterday  
yesterday  
yesterday.

 **Fingerprints**

If you dust my stack of papers for your fingerprints the only ones you will find will be someone else's.

 **Seven (a tribute to Ibong Adarna)**

You have waited for this day  
to be free from your confines  
you have waited for this day  
for a man to call you "mine".

And he did, but he did not  
he kissed you and held your hand  
he promised you his kingdom  
and he did, but he did not.

You have waited seven years  
for his return in your arms  
in these castle walls, you yearn  
for his voice and for his smile.

Wedding bells ring in your ears  
another girl in your place  
you have wasted for this day  
for that prince to call you "mine".

 **Ropes (a tribute to Florante and Laura)**

Have you shouted from that tree, oh dear sweet lover?  
Why are you there? Why are you there? Why are you there?  
You see your mother's greying hair and her small smile  
You see your father's head across a thousand miles  
You are hungry, so are the lions around you  
you utter a litany and think of her love.

 **History books forgot about us (a tribute to Noli Me Tangere)**

Crisostomo  
Have you fallen to the mercy of your father?  
Believed to drown in the same lake  
Where are you now? The sparks in your eyes?  
A knife and an awning book  
Ideals, bravery, and sacrifice. A foregone conclusion.

Maria Clara  
Two letters exchanged for your beloved's  
your beautiful face is a façade  
Death or the monastery? Both will be paid by blood  
a nun screams in the night  
Auburn hair and small lips. She is gone.

Elias  
Gunshots through your hardened chest  
Will you ever see the sun again?  
No, you entrust it to a child of tomorrow  
May you rest, May these old sins too  
The dawn, a rosary, the water. The greatest loss.

Salome  
You are not his revolution, dear  
And your last look of him is his ashes  
You have hardened palms and pink lips  
Will you ever live for the daylight again?  
Sampaguitas, flowers, and rough kisses. Eternal.

 **The Jeweler (a tribute to El Filibusterismo)**

Blue glasses. White Streaks, Tired Eyes  
Have you been visited by a noble soul or your father?

If you do not stand for anything  
then what do you fall for?  
Why are you back?  
Why? Are you running out of time?

You are a God, aren't you? (Does He even exist for you?)  
Hovering over people  
Chess master of both sides.

If you came back for love, for revenge  
you are thirteen years too late  
If you came back for love, for revenge  
you are under a cruel fate.

This is how you end. Black cardinal.

a dead nun, a doused lamp  
bloodshot eyes and poison in your veins  
Was it enough? Will it ever be enough?

 **Kokoronashi**

You are a kindred soul, with stars in your eyes.

You give and you give and you give  
you give your heart, your love, your bones and why not everything  
till there's nothing left of you.

When will you receive anything back?

 **Jealous**

How can I not be insecure? When he deserves sunlight and I can only give him the ashes of my marrows.

\- But dear, he wants you even if you are demolition dust.

 **Colors**

So this how it feels like, how people beyond their years see, it's like a new drabble, a whole new scenery, a new heart and a mouth forms these little words.

"Do you see it?"

And this was its harsh reply.

"See what?"

 **Bystander**

At the end of the day, he loves you and not me.

You were the one  
You were always the one  
You were the light in his life.

 **Coffee**

Tell: Levi drank the hot coffee as he wrote Petra's name in the report

Show: Levi drank coffee as his quill flowed with the loops of two A's. It's black and hot. As he sipped the liquid, it scorches the roof of his mouth but he paid no heed and gulped it down.

 **Empire**

One day we will build an empire of our own  
Among a city of glass and towns of pedestals  
One day the world  
It will burn  
One day the world  
It will freeze  
One day we will build an empire of our own  
Among our downtrodden feelings and our unforgivable sins.

 **Apologies**

My body is a garden uprooted in sadness

"I'm sorry" is the biggest prose that I can offer.

 **How**

How do you say sorry to a person you've tried destroying ever since? How do you say sorry to a little girl who "accidentally" cut her wrists with a broken bottle? How do you say sorry to yourself?

 **Dementia**

Since there is so much pain and sadness...you tend to forget there was anything good.

 **Black Sun and White Moon**

Have you seen the way he looks at her?

Like she dried up the pouring rain

Like she is his moon

Like he can't keep up with it, the speed of the world without her in it.

I will repeat the question. Have you seen the way he looks at her?

"Ichigo...why do you still look at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you still love me,"

 **Skies**

We only ever have one umbrella, so...we hold it together, and it's fine if we get a little wet, because...it'll soon be sunny again.

 **Question**

"Does he make you happy?"

"Inexplicably so."

 **Strength**

Whenever I want to give up I think of a little girl whose legs scorched with red angry marks; she never gave up.

\- I have no right to.

 **Pry**

I'm afraid someone might pry open my heart and all they could see is hate and envy.

 **Self-inflicted**

How do I say thank you for the people who pick up the pieces of something never broken but hurt themselves in the process?

 **Pleasure**

May all your lovers forget their names as they scream out yours.

 **Decisions**

How foolish of you, to pick lust, adventure and danger over home, safety and compassion.

 **Fault lines**

We were built across the fault lines

We were so fragile underneath

With no solid rock beneath the ground

We just had to break eventually.

 **Resurrection**

She watched the Romans kill him slowly, and she wept, and she ached, and she spent two nights sitting in the dirt outside the tomb, whispering prayers to the stars like it might be worth something, anything, and everything. And it was.

 **Hole**

I've never felt so empty and I wonder if you ache like I ache.

 **Archaic**

Orpheus' last cry into the underworld is heart-wrenching,  
and Eurydice in all her faithful glory wants to say:  
'the fear was not your fault, my love',  
but then she's trapped again.

It's the fifteenth year, or maybe the sixteenth,  
and Odysseus wonders if this truly matters.  
He's covered by blood, far away from Ithaca,  
and his journey never ends.

Paris tries to recall all the dead, soldiers, fathers, brothers  
but they are infinite, a legion of blurred and blotchy faces.  
Sometimes, he looks at Helen and thinks:  
'what have we done to this world?'

Theseus went away without a word,  
and she wonders if he hated her so much,  
to leave so mercilessly, knowing that  
Ariadne trusted him with her heart.

Briseis, with her golden curls and brown eyes  
buries Achilles, with her slaved hands  
and his ashes mingles with Patroclus  
she is left alone in this world.

 **Nyx**

She laughs like a goddess in summer, for she is one.

 **Euphemism**

And in the end, who the hell would date a girl with anxiety in her eyes, depression in her lungs and sadness in her mind? Who would even try to notice someone like her?

 **Writing**

Writing has become a safe zone. Catharsis. Something I cling to every single day that I have forgotten what it felt like to roll my eyes at a formal theme or even an essay. Writing also led me to something absolutely changing. Potential. I have a little talent I can share with the world. Little scraps of paper that can be read by anyone since they scatter most of the time on my classroom's floors. I have written about a warrior and his heart's wife of five years, or a boy in front of a grand piano getting another invisible wound of his soulmate. The list goes on and on; two girls at a crossroads of destiny or a villain and hero talking about the same person as they bleed out.

 **Juxtapose**

You felt too much. He did not.

 **Average**

Average is the meeting point of less and more, making it more interesting to look at.

 **Mistake**

They said that love was never wrong, it is purity, it is a gift, but why are you treating me like a mistake that you want to erase so much?

 **Together**

Both of them were strong with all the baggage they carry, but they manage to carry more together.

 **Cliché**

He kisses her fervently, as he puts her coffee down; he feels her smile as they hear the pitter-patter of the cold rain near their window.

 **Despite**

Despite only seeing the world, he has the universe in his eyes.

 **Hate**

Do you hate people because they are terrible or they just seem terrible because you hate them?

 **Some Days**

On some days I am the mess

On some days I am the broom

On the worst of days I am both the mess and the broom.

 **Unlove**

How to unlove someone who has been through your worst episodes? When you nearly cut yourself to death and he held love. When you thought no one will look at you and think "beautiful" but he tucks your hair in and he says "home".

 **Places**

"Do you think...we can leave this entire world behind us, Hector? I-I mean…together, leave all of this. The walls, the army, the prophecies behind us."

"Where shall we go?"

"Anywhere with you is fine...home."

 **Ink**

I want to write, not about fire

of how it imposes great desire

I want to write, not about fire

not about a warrior and a broken lyre.

 **Texts**

You are the hidden texts underneath my pillow. You and your words and your thoughts on my skin, you and every fantasy you bring to life, every ghostly caress, every filthy, dirty, desperate and glorious conversation we've ever had, imprinted on my body like plain black text.

 **Beauty**

She is light pressed against shadows, and the bards and poets will sing of her curled lashes and long hair for centuries to come.

 **Woman**

She is not meant to be romanticized. She is meant to be humanized.

 **Jielle**

You are the first drop of snow in winter; pure. As innocent as a changeling's smooth skin.

 **Summer Nights**

When I came with you that first time on the soft bed of your dormitory in España, the clean and fluffy sheets under my back, the heel of one foot propped on your shoulder, I went ahead and screamed, gasped and moaned as loud and as long as my body demanded I should, because somewhere, in the back of my cloudy mind, packed in the smallest neurons still capable of some thought, I have forgotten that there were students nearby, there was the arc of the centuries looming over.

Afterwards, when I would let go of the soft velvet and open my eyes, I looked up; hesitantly and scared.

You were on your knees; your hands combing my hair, gently, in soothing motions – the open lights sculpting each lift and delicate twist, the lax muscles, the lines of your jaw. I saw the sweat forming at your brows and your eyes, heavy-lidded, with so much divine passion and the world opened wide, and the world was inside of me.

It was my first time with you, it was my first time unraveling to such heights, I would recall stories of this first plight, little death they would name it, how women came and it was a war cry, an empress pursuing possession.

So I looked at you again and it felt true, your whole body seemed defeated, owned, there are scratches at your back and hips, there are nips on your neck and chests. You pressed your head into my shoulders, breathing slightly fast and you just groaned my name into my ear.

I knew right there and then, in the next summer nights, I need to be more gentle, and so impossibly kind.

 **Dependent**

I desperately wanted to fly but my god I craved your wings so much.

 **Art**

Make art

In the space between my thighs

And paint me with your burning tongue

And your deft fingers.

 **Orgasm**

And I'll think of you

Of your wonderful laugh

And the crows of your eyes

As my body

Explodes into a canvas of stars

I'll think of you

As you sing Sunday Glory

And your breath-taking smile.

 **Unsent Letters**

yours as long as life permits it.

 **Into the Woods**

Why do I get the feeling that you know what you've been doing to me? That you know about my shortened breaths when you come near me. That you know about all the dreams I've had with your eyes in them. That you know how I blush when you put your hands on my shoulders. That when you look at me you can read my every thought, every single one of my wildest fantasies I've had about you. That when you read my words you know, for sure, that they're about you. About how I feel about you. Why do I feel like you know everything?

 **Dawn and Fireflies**

If I were to paint the sky of that summer which never came

You would laugh at me just like back in those old days.

 **Nights**

I'm afraid if you open your heart to me, I'll keep the lock to myself.

\- You don't own people you love, and my God I'm starting to love you.

 **French Vanilla, Two packs of Sweetener and Creamer**

I laugh  
as you get  
your coffee  
and I saw your  
eyes and I saw your  
smile, and my God  
it's so damn beautiful.  
And I get why, why you drink your coffee like that, I  
get why you prefer to wake up with a prayer and a smile. And  
jI know you love smiles and laughter; how your eyes dis appear your teeth in all their skewness, renew my own like a resur recttion. Hands raised in surrender. I know why you drink your cof fee like that. A man like you is not meant for bitter coffee gourds and swift scalding pain. A man like you is not made for suffering You look sat me and at my black coffee and said, "You are not made for asuffering as well," and you laugh heartily as you put sugar in it.  
There it is. The crows of your eyes and your reverent voice  
the next day, I am holding a cup in one hand, books in the others it ssmells like French vanilla, two packs of sweetener and creamer.

 **Wax, Sun and Seas**

I get the whole "He's the only guy I've ever really been in love with" part. The whole "He saved me and got all my insecurities" part. The "He's the one I'll wait for" part. I really do. It's hard to let go, hard to move on to someone else and think you'll never find anyone with such characteristics; the same curls, the big laughs, the enormous appetite or chemistry, walking hand in hand and back hugs and cuddles like you two had, But I promise you, once you let go and move on, you'll find out that, deep down, the only feelings you have for him might be just the fact that you'll always love him. You might just be scared to move on without him. 

**Parallel lines**

far away beyond this cold universe

we have convened in parallel lines.

 **Boundaries**

I want to overturn the accepted layout of this solar system and touch you.

 **Composition**

It's almost as if calling him the sun was an understatement. He is the universe. He's so vast and it's terrifying. He makes me feel so small. And yet I want to know and know and know.

What are the stars that make up his constellations; the planets he had brought forth through his destructions?

All the things he had loved

All the things he loves

All the things he will love

And if...I could ever be one of them

 **Did He?**

Did he ever promise you the world too? That how he will kiss your forehead on the 3rd floor of the highest building.

Did he ever promise you that he will fill the crack in your soul? On how you think he will be the greatest mistake of your life?

 **Eyes**

Look into his eyes, they'll answer everything. They're so deep, filled to the brim with endless dreams, you could drown in them, get lost in them, build an entirely new world in them.

 **Scars**

I have loved since you but when the new paint gets scratched, there you are underneath.

 **Proxemics**

When you're near, the creatures inside me cower and keep quiet, watching you with their eyes.

\- I've never seen them so afraid before.

 **Spring**

I love him

I love him

I love him so so so much

And every time I see him there's this weird and amazing feeling in my chest that I can't really explain. It's like when you're on a roller coaster and the ride suddenly goes so fast and down that you feel like there's this tickle to your heart and that it's about to explode.

When I hear his steps, when I see him, when I hear his voice. His reverent voice. It's as if I'm lying in a garden full of flowers, of so many different kinds of colorful and beautiful flowers with the bright and hot sun shining on my face, with the birds singing, with the cicada's chirping and clicking noises.

 **Fairytales**

I used to believe in fairytales.

I don't know if they had abandoned me or if I had abandoned them.

 **Come in**

Even monsters are welcome, when you feel so empty.

 **Avian**

You weren't made of magic, and you didn't have galaxies in your eyes. You were just a boy with broken glasses who told me I was beautiful. Now, you're a fleeting memory–nothing but a name in my proses.

 **Visitor**

Depression visits you, and you are eight. Hiding in the warmth of a cold bed. It did not look anything strange, just a looming figure, completely forgettable, there is nothing to remember (and you thought this will be your last meeting)

You don't know that it would also be in the form of a bloodied handkerchief, of ripped pages of an upside notebook, as a little piece of glass you hide within your magnificent stack of proses. Yes, you don't know it will be the remains of a broken cellphone, of fingers hitting the piano recklessly, in the form of how the keys ring without such dissonance. Of your eyes head-on, crossing the road, no commitment to side glances.

Depression appeared again. When your pillows had tears blotted on to their casings, where scarves would hide your scars, which reek of rust; a little girl clutching a broken rosary like broken petals left to decay at the altar.

You told it to leave, your voice shaking and your body trembling, bags in your eyes, hair up in a mess. Hoping your pleas would reach and depression shifts ever so slightly and for the first time in years it has spoken.

"Everyone has left...but I will not"

Your visitor kept true to their words.

 **Eine Kleine**

From the moment I was born, I couldn't stop screaming, saying that "I wanted to fade away and disappear." Ever since the day I stopped I had always been searching, for the one I'd someday meet; for the "you" that has to leave.

 **Idolatry**

I wish I could believe that our love could save us.

 **Rust**

Time heals all wounds, and sometimes I wonder why mine rust like old knives.

 **Bodies**

Some bodies are temples but all are ruins at your feet.

 **Patience**

Maybe you are destined to meet a man in his late 30's with graying hair, his smile lines and stubble evident, he sings songs of Sabbath and he calls your writing holy.

Until then keep writing.

 **Ethereal**

Sometimes you speak stars into being (they are very small but very bright) and other times the words that fall out take root and grow into briar roses and morning glories.

Sometimes you drag yourself out of bed or into bed and leave bloody footprints in your wake and if you listen clearly you can hear Troy falling and Achilles roaring but other times it's only the hush of rain welling in the imprints of toes, arch, heel.

Sometimes you laugh and smile and dance and drink and I think, Dionysus has returned but other times I see you limp, and I think of Hephaestus, who works wonders even so.

Sometimes I see too many things when I look at you or think of you but sometimes I look at you and see flesh and blood and labyrinth and melted wings.

and its cliché, I think, to see you and think Icarus and Icarus' wings and Icarus' sun, but you're not falling all the time, sometimes your diving, sometimes your swimming, sometimes you just want that bright shining glory freedom space and.

there's nothing just about it, you want it, you fly toward it, and you don't care that the wax holding your wings together will melt, you don't hear the voice crying 'beware, beware'.

No that's not right, you do, but also you see gold where others see fire, and you think, it's worth it, it's worth it, I will crash and be subsumed by something larger and greater than flesh and blood and labyrinth.

Well, this is only what I think, and what is true is much greater, because you are you and I can only guess at what that might mean.

 **Tale**

Our story has been called dead and yet people speak of it a thousand years later.

 **Closure**

I know it ended, but it never really began, but in my heart, it was so real.

 **Blame**

You will always blame the people who have hurt you; even if they didn't mean to.

 **1 A.M. Thoughts**

Sometimes we admit to ourselves that love isn't always enough, not when all of this had happened.

 **Lessons in Loving a Prophet**

One.  
You are made for this, you the chalice, the royal blood, the fleur-de-lis, you who made history.

Two.  
You know how this ends. There is nothing you can do to change this fate; so make amends with this now. Ready your hands for that wooden cross, shred the cloth for bandages. Prepare the rosaries.

Three.  
When you meet Him, outside the groceries, along the shorelines you have called your home, against the summer solstice. You will not know what He is. He will neither be too charming nor too handsome, not thunder or even polish. An invisible crown of thorns.

Four.  
The day you fall in love, His mouth will spill your name. He will repeat and repeat. He will not touch you. He will watch your hips, study whatever ample you have, will ask to watch you dance. When you turn to leave, He will use your name like a magnet drunk on gold.

Five.

He will call you a miracle. Your face will unravel. For this is His magic. When He begs, when the water of the lakes baptizes you, when He implores, say yes. 

Six.  
When He offers His lips, take them. Take His arms, His throat, take His hands. Take His whole life too. Gorge. Swallow everything whole. Gag. Vomit. Swallow more. Do not hesitate. No time for politeness, or coyness. Take. Take till you cannot take anymore. Until He cannot give anymore.

Seven.  
When the sinuous men call you whore, nod.

Eight.  
He will tell you of the others. Others who came before you. Known before you. Knelt and served before you. How they went crazy in their sleep awaiting His return. His resurrection. Do not flinch. Do not doubt your thickened fingertips. Stand upright. You promised.

Nine.  
When you find Him in his room, thrashing the sheets, pressing His palms into the walls, howling, His face a river...like a scourging, like an agony. Close the door. Shut it down. Firmly. Steadily. Close it. This is how He makes wine. Leave Him in His sorcery.

Ten.  
When He explains that He cannot love you. He does; oh He does. But He can't. He will never be yours alone. When He tells how the meek, the envious, the tempted, the proud are His angels, do not mourn. Smile, feed Him, and wash His feet with your hair. 

Eleven.  
He is king among thieves, but you know better. He is king among kings. The plague will hollow His skin. The crows will reduce His soul into bones. His own sacred heart will empty Himself. Allow for the bleed. Be ready for prayers. When the clock strikes three; be ready at Calvary.

Twelve.  
In these lost skies, after the last of the burning lashes, the thorn and the spittle when His body is laid limp at your feet. Remember the night He made love to you, the smoldering embers in His eyes, His words are a hymn to the North.

Thirteen.  
You who made history. The fleur-de-lis, the royal blood, you the chalice. You are made for this.

 **Serendipity**

You were the best mistake I ever made, or anyways you weren't the worst.

 **Karma**

A melody that always knew beauty and regret

Has destroyed my heart and body that yearns for renewal

All the sins we've done will be paid eventually

You and I await, for the call of the holy.

 **Samsara**

How the sun and moon have suddenly both aligned

As if held in place by the passion in this still heart of mine

Time and time we'd miss as life would cycle and rise

You and I both crossed paths here in this paradise.

 **Moksha**

Suddenly a melody I faintly recall

Trembles through my heart and memories the ones I forgot

Sometime long ago, before this chaos and fear

I think you and I were somehow standing right here.

 **Difference**

He's Prince Charming and you're just Little Red Riding Hood.

 **Consume**

He makes sure that I wouldn't swallow him, but I just find it funny because it's so easy for the sun to be consumed by the moon.

 **Language**

My heart is a dead language but you pronounce each word perfectly.

 **Open Waters**

I can feel your eyes flood with desire  
And fear that you might capsize  
I can feel your heart burn with fire  
And fear that it won't suffice.

 **Hanahaki**

As if she was being punished by some cruel goddess watching her struggle to come up with an answer, three more petals have fallen to the sink. As she tried to clear her throat, she splashed her face and groaned; she gave in, unable to deny it any longer.

She liked him.

No, "like" doesn't even begin to describe the weight of her emotions. It's love. Pathetic; considering how hard she tried to protect her heart. Pathetic, considering there was another before that reverent man, a boy with tired eyes and unruly curls, that boy who made her spit out thorns, that poked through her jugular artery ruining her neck, and not soft velvet petals. A pitiful sound escapes her, a burst of weak laughter as her whole body slumped and she held her head in her hands.

It's like she hasn't learned anything from the people who hurt her. Friends and family coming and going, taking and taking, never looking back to see what they did to her. How many holes and bruises they left for her to quietly patch up, all by herself. How many scars she has inflicted to herself. And now he's about to take what's left, her very life and remaining feelings.

Maybe she was bound to fall for him from the moment they met? The moment he stepped into the classroom, like fate or destiny or the alignment of stars or whatever.

As hot tears start to pool in her hands, and she began to shake, all she can think about now are his kind words, his gentle voice, the time they've spent together. As if on cue, more petals come along with stomach acid and she bolted into one of the stalls, clutching the toilet bowl. It'd be one thing if the vomiting was the result of her not eating right, but the sickly sweet taste of the petals make her feel even worse.

The burns subsided after a while and she wiped her wet clammy hands to her skirt, fixed her blouse and wiped her glasses clean, she needed to look fine when she goes in the classroom and she lifted her chin a little higher as she heard the click of her heels.

There's a tickling in the back of her throat.

She coughs and coughs but it never goes away, and it's really starting to irritate her, She hasn't taken no more than ten steps away and suddenly there is no air in her lungs, she takes a deep breath that rattles in her throat, and she still can't breathe-

She stumbles out of the stairs and falls to her knees, still coughing and trying to get the petals out, and-

Little specks of blood stains her tinted lips, it's the familiar metallic taste and more petals drift to the ground, stained and delicate, and she grabs one, holds it up to her eyes with a trembling hand, and the tears she repressed dropped as soon as the petal fell.

She just thanks the heavens it's Tuesday today.

 **Path**

I know he is a beautiful flower, my love, but he is so far from your path.

 **Home**

he made me feel like home

he is my home

and pretty soon I'm going to be homeless.

 **Constellations**

The human soul is made of little stars.

An infinite number of them stretching across vast galaxies, filling the universe of the human body with pinpricks of light. Each shines brightly maybe some brighter than most or worse dimmer, but a scattering of stars is nothing, not until a constellation is formed.

That is when the true beauty of the soul manifests itself—two sets of stars, perfectly conjoined in a blazing image of strength and beauty and passion, the everlasting nature of two souls made into one. Nothing can touch them but the other, and only when every last star is gone can the constellation die out.

It is the gift of God, they say. Humans have overcome other species, the earth, each other, and even their own nature, but one thing that will always bring them down is loneliness. God arranged this, to allow everyone to live and die with the very person who will understand them the most. It is a blessing.

(No one mentions how the stars can darken, how half of them can turn on the other, smothering its own life, on purpose or not; how the remaining constellation will become an entirely new, untouchable one of its own. Invincible. Alone. No one thinks of these old souls, forever young, watching the rest of the world through eyes weathered by ages of solitude, and no one sees the eternal regret that inevitably haunts those faces.)

 **Silence**

Writing isn't just words and paint; it's breaking glass and not realizing the sound and music we make.

 **Secret**

I think up ciphers to trace onto your skin, because it doesn't feel safe to just say I love you.

 **Worship**

How do you deal being worshipped by a man who is supposed to be worshipped himself?

 **Touch**

When you touch me, my mind is gone. The only words I know now are lost in your body.

 **The Sun**

I am not the first person you loved. Your old eyes have seen more than mine, your strong arms have held more things than mine. Your clear ears have heard more laughter than mine.

You are not the first person I had loved. There are songs I loved but you have never heard, there are airs I have breathed but you have never breathed, there are punctuations I have dotted but you have never written.

We have both known loss the way we dare the world to look at our smiles and see that we are okay. We have both tried to live with intelligence for hair and tolerance for teeth and the world knows we have failed.

Our love came unprepared in the middle of the day. Our love came when we'd given up and we just wanted to continue to walk through these halls. I think that has to be part of its miracle.

This is how we try to heal. I will hold your fingers like a strength that has tried to leave you. You will look at me and I find the hope that I thought was gone. Our hands will nurture and salvage and as the sun and moon collide rarely, we collide as well, rarely.

I will dance simply to the veins of your hands. I will sing songs to the crookedness of your teeth. I will write a thesaurus of all the words I have used trying to describe the way it feels to have finally, finally, finally found you.

And I will not be afraid of your scars; those scars you cannot open up to anyone. I don't think I will ever be afraid of the things I own too.

I know sometimes it's still hard for you to let me in, to let me know the lines of your palms, I know it's still so hard for me to be worshipped by someone meant to be worshipped himself. but please know: whether it's the days you burn more brilliant than the bright sun or the nights you collapse into your bed wondering if your choices throughout the day were right,

You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I will love you when your sun is setting.

I will love you when you are now dusk.

 **The End of the World**

This is how the world ends, not with a bang but only because explosions don't make a sound in space.

 **Death**

Death is not the end. Death is the rolling credits and the movie has long been since over.

 **Potential**

Remember how her potential was a promise? And not a regret?

 **Existence**

I know you are out there right now, forgetting I exist, like a village that once resided on the slopes of the volcano in my heart.

 **Deep Waters**

I might tire myself out from struggling, and I might drown but I will never sink.

 **Sometimes**

Sometimes I am okay knowing that you don't love me. Sometimes I can look at you and just be happy with your presence. But then there are the times when I look at you and I feel the ache. I feel the ache of longing, wishing that you were looking back at me. But you never are.

 **Reciprocation**

He loves you, oh God, he loves you, in the way you two talk about the sun and moon and the stars, in the way he pours himself over your words and letters, in the way he says your name like a prayer, he may not love you in the way you want, but he loves you in everything he does.

 **Finished**

A million questions that will never be answered  
A thousand movies that we will never watch together  
A hundred books we will never get to read over coffee  
A couple of songs that we will never sing together  
A few words that we will never say to each other.

A boy that I will miss forever.

 **Confession**

I have told everyone that I love you.  
Sorry if they knew even before you.  
To be fair,  
I think everyone else knew  
Before I did.

 **Tragedy** **  
**  
I always loved reading tragedies; I just didn't expect us to become one of them.

 **Chrysalis**

I built a cocoon from the proses I have made for you  
It is warm, and I feel so loved.  
I intend to stay there.

I built a cocoon from the proses I have made for you  
but in order for me to grow  
I have to get out. 

**Identity**

I used to thank you  
for making me know I am beautiful  
And you always assure me  
I am.

Since you left me,  
All I've felt is that I am not worthy  
And I'm so scared that you realized  
I am.

 **A Gaze into Sunlight (a short story)**

What makes his chest burn is her smile.

The girl has other male friends, in their own division and outside of it – and, he has made sure that the most dangerous ones are also the ones farthest away – but she is never that comfortable in her own skin around them, never so relaxed and content. When with them, she keeps trying to hide her fiery personality away, unwilling to let anyone know she does not master her emotions with all the deftness expected of a responsible and capable assistant, and won't they be surprised at her ferocity when she finally explodes?

But this, this is different.

He has already warned himself it might be; he has been aware of the boy's origins the moment he stepped in the building of Sol-Libra, shocking and scaring his peers with his level of raw wit. It wasn't hard to find out the boy's identity – not when his assistant used to make a point of checking on his studies abroad, it does not help either that he was the son of the esteemed owner of the corporation, Xiang Mendoza.

She has never had that much to say to him about someone else, and he has been filing all the information carefully, telling himself he should be thankful for her show of trust for the opportunity to revise his plans. Telling himself that feeling irritated by her willing exposition is illogical and unworthy of his time.

And he tries to remember that, tries to crush the weakness before it forms, but, when his eyes happen on her arms around the younger man, Tristan brushes the back of his hand against Hannah's cheek.

It must be one of his characteristic reactions, one of the things the young man's usual gestures with his young assistant. These thoughts are subdued by something more primal, something more exposed. Angry and vulnerable.

She smiles at him and congratulates him for his first day in the 10th Division, his instantaneous promotion to Division manager – only to be expected; he thinks the young man will soon surpass Assistant and Event coordinator Raina Manalo maybe even Manager Sayo – and takes a step back, takes his hands in hers. Her true smile, which he had never seen directed at someone other than him, flashes in the already dimming afternoon light; and his sharp eyes do not miss the flush on the young man's cheeks, the look of want in his eyes.

The moment is destroyed by the boy's immaturity, as he is unable to cope with the proximity. He turns away from her and asks her not to call him by a nickname Adrian can't quite catch, tells her he is "Sir Mendoza" now and needs everyone else to respect him – and the Manager of the 5th division feels his throat sour with contempt for that boy who is unable to appreciate and savor her affection, or even to deal with it in a mature way. Ordinarily, such a demonstration of ungratefulness would rile her up; she would press her hands tight against herself, bite on her lower lip, and go on with a slightly clipped voice, the true smile fading onto a doll's artificiality – and he, he thinks himself victorious.

Yet her smile does not disappear – in fact, her smile only grows larger and gentler, as if she is endeared by the man's words. Which, he realizes, she is; he surmises that make him, him. At last, her smile infects the scion– and his smile is a bit unlike hers, more secretive and pleased, but intimate, all the same. Like they know each other inside and out, and can look past their superficial banter and treasure each other for what they are – defects and all.

He looks at their smiles and thinks Tristan Mendoza might know parts of her he himself has never even glimpsed, that thought caused him to narrow his eyes slightly, his hands slowly curling into fists.

"Ya'll right, Sir Santos?"

He turns to the voice as if whipped – and of course, it had to be Gabriel, coming up the hallway with his meek assistant, holding the creepiest of his knowing smirks. Sniffing for his weaknesses.

He disguises the irritation behind a calm expression, but he knows very well what this scene tells about him. "Why do you ask, Gabriel?"

"I dunno, ya looked like ya ate something mighty bitter." And in their unacknowledged little game, he retreats with every step Gabriel advances; and he loses when the other manager sees the two figures standing in front of the 10th Division's office.

Gabriel moves forward eagerly, snatches what little territory he has given with savage pleasure. "Ah, that's the new division manager? I didn't know he was acquainted with Hannah."

He sees Kyle move his lips – probably to tell his manager of the relationship between Tristan Mendoza and Hannah Manuel– but he does not listen; he can only see Gabriel's smile, see the promise of death in his closed eyes. A taunt.

An unspoken idea that, if he has such weaknesses, maybe he can be defeated after all.

The anger burns stronger.

He has been long setting things so Hannah would function as a distraction when he eventually makes his escape from the Sol-Libra's functions; right now, however, he decides he will not stop there – he cannot afford to stop there, cannot suffer her to live. He will not stop until he sees that weakness in him gone – not until he destroys everything that ever made him feel vulnerable and exposed, everything that has ever been out of his reach, everything that made Gabriel smile like he, Adrian Santos, was only human.

After all, she is his and his alone; he will one day be more powerful than a God in their eyes, and if that doesn't make her his, what could?

Silently, he decides he won't even leave a hollow shell behind for the boy, and smiles a true smile.

 **Awanggan**

She wants to flaunt you to the world  
The feel of your lips, the feel of your hands  
Hers, all hers  
She will tell the world everything  
Yes, she will flaunt you to the world.

The sunrise meekly watches on  
The thumps of a ball or the skip of a jump rope  
On how she infuses mint in you water  
On how she wipes the sweat off your face  
Or the way she smiles at your praises  
The sunrise is young and delighted.

The seas and the sky are jealous  
For your infinite support and patience  
The comfort of the cheesecakes that you always buy  
The dresses and the books that make her smile  
For your calm demeanor and stubbornness  
The seas are trembling and the skies are fainting.

The stars and the moon are witnesses  
To the moans and sighs, you elicit from her dainty mouth  
To the warmth and pleasure that emits from your room  
They know the marks that you leave on her neck  
They know the scratches that adorn your back  
The stars and the moon are eavesdroppers that feel everything.

The rain is happy for their daughter  
The way he holds the umbrella up high, shielding the tears and pain  
The way she hums a tune as you bring her coffee  
Giving her jackets and coats whenever your arms aren't around her  
The way you laugh as she dares and breathes in the bad weather  
The rain entrusts her to you

 **Five things my mother never taught me  
** **  
**i. when even the sick wolves dare not to look at you, as though you are not worthy to even be devoured.

Smile. Consider yourself blessed.

ii. The universe is forever expanding  
don't let anyone say to you, there is no room for your high wit and the passion through your veins.

iii. The past you leave behind, will never ruin you.

iv. It is okay to want.

You have lived all your life eating crumbs under the table.

It is okay to want.

v. He is not Midas, no matter how flaxen his hair is.  
You have always been golden.

 **Shipwreck  
**  
There is a shipwreck between the junctions of my ribs and it took you years to understand how I found it so hard to breathe through all this drowning. There are people like me who cannot be held quietly; how my screams can never be internalized. If you looked through our photo albums, all you would find are the razors I have hidden from you and the smell of liquor pressed to its corners. There is a shipwreck between the junctions of my ribs. I am a box labeled with the word fragile on it and so many people have stopped handling me with care. And for the first time, you have realized, and you have understood that you will never know how to apologize for being one of them.

 **Four Types of Love**

(Storge) I love you, the way you keep my tired eyes open and you help me make peanut butter sandwiches.

(Eros) I love you, against your sheets, your fingers gently tracing my thighs, my fingers tugging at the waistband of your boxers.

(Philia) I love you at four A.M. when I praise a God I tried so hard to believe in, a thousand times.

(Agape) I love you, from the depths of my heart, unconditionally; the way an echo beats into an empty abyss; always enduring despite its hardships.

 **About the Author  
** **  
**I love writing in the middle of dawn, when there is quiet and all I can hear is the sound of the keyboard, the way my hair is pulled into crown braids, the veins on his hands. Jackets sprayed with Old Spice.

My real name is something cold and unpronounceable.

Sometimes my heart feels like a tiled floor and everyone comes in wearing shoes.

I cry at the movies, and I go alone in the movies.

I have dreams where I try to persuade someone to love me.

I bite the skin around my nails and pluck out my hair.

Sometimes I look at the mirror and see the acne, the pollution, the leftover scars and I cry.

 **  
**

**Sunlight  
**  
His hands tangled with sun and he leaves you with burn marks where his fingertips and his eyes linger. And sometimes when you look back, when you touch back, your bones know you won't come out of this whole.

 **Weapon  
**  
They molded you into a weapon and shouted at you to find peace.

 **Holy  
**  
I called you holy and you put it back to my mouth, I called you holy and you tried so hard to hide the halo behind your back, plucked the wings off your shoulders as I took my communion from your lips. You are my holy water, my wine and my altar.

I called you an angel and kissed soft prayers up your spine. I called you an angel and recited a litany in the cradle of your arms, led my hands across your back as some form of devotion – worship; you, my seraph, the fallen.

I tried to write you poems, but my ink is filled with hymns.

 **Holy  
**  
The first time he calls me holy, I laugh so childishly my sides hurt. The second time, I moan gospels around his fingers around my mouth. God, he fucks like a seraph and there are no scriptures that ever prepared me for his hands; that mapped out the sides of my hips. Lips that kiss hymns upon my neck.

He confesses how long he has yearned for a place to worship. He says his prayers between my thighs.

 **In this story**

In this story, your mother is not the villain.

In this story, she helps find a way to pick the lock, to wake up, to climb out of the tower yourself.

In this story, she lets you be angry.

In this story, you meet a dragon and it is afraid of you.

In this story, you don't need to be saved.

In this story, your mother raised you to recognize a prison from a home, she understood you.

In this story, they don't fall in love with you before they know you.

In this story, they aren't better than you.

In this story, you have talons.

In this story, happily ever after has bites and scratches.

In this story, you are free and terrifying.

In this story, you get away.

In this story, you bleed.

In this story, you survive.

In this story, you smile.

 **Narcissism**

Don't be so vain to think that you ruined me,

That your voice wrecked me,

Your deep talks destroyed me.

I am the only one who has the power to do that.

I loved you, and I ruined myself,

I wrecked myself,

I destroyed myself.

You did not consume me. I got consumed.

And I will keep doing so for as long as I am breathing.

 **Self-love**

Stop.

You do not love him.

You merely love the idea of him,

The concept of someone

Who will graze your cheeks gently

And kiss your tears back into your skin. 

You crave and savor salvation,

I cannot blame you for that.

But you won't find it in his empty words,

Rehearsed, repeated and abused on his

Silver tongue. 

No, no.

Your saving grace is somewhere

inside that scar tissue

you're so desperate to

tear away from your body.

 **Want**

I have written so much about someone's eyes filling with want and need. That quiet afternoon, I saw your eyes. That was the moment I didn't want to write about it; I wanted to see it.

\- I wanted to see it in your eyes.

 **Graphesthesia**

Have you considered that maybe I am not pleasant?  
maybe I wear that lipstick so that  
you will see my pretty red mouth  
wrapping around a milk box straw or ice cream stick  
and be distracted enough not to notice  
that I am more than intelligent and power hungry;  
a little threat.

Maybe I do wear flowy skirts and put cheek tint on  
so you will look at my unimpressed eyelashes  
and overlook my spiteful glare  
as a trick of my silly, girlish routine.

Maybe I wear my heels so high and thin  
So that I grasp your attention with the sway of my hips  
As I listen to them click against the floor  
And know that if you should try to overpower me  
I have and kept on walking on razors.

Maybe when I laugh at your silly jokes  
I am really baring my hidden fangs  
waiting patiently for the day  
that I sink them into your pale neck.

I am not made of porcelain pleasantries;  
you will find that these things are just my armor  
to keep you at a distance  
so you do not step on me and shatter  
my perfect and flaccid control.

I am not a husk — I will never be one.  
I am turning my head  
So that the forest fire blazing through my eyes  
Does not catch on the accelerant of your sweaty palms  
And burn your bones to dust.

I am not just a pretty girl:  
I am a fury, a siren, a phoenix —  
An ocean of werewolves and wendigoes  
That will carve out your strong chest  
So that the next time I paint my pretty red lips  
I will taste the copper tang of yours.

 **Herstory** **  
**  
I stole an apple sometime shortly after I was born.  
Do you think of me whenever you eat crumble?  
I think God probably does.  
It's quite funny, to be honest. He had the perfect world  
and He let me and a slithering snake and a perfect red apple  
uproot it in one short day.

I opened a box they'd told me not to.  
It's quite funny, to be honest, they should have finished what they started  
To be fair to myself, they gave me to a man  
I'd never met. I'd never really met myself.  
My lungs and blood and hair were clay, once.  
Sometimes I think that's all I ever was.  
That box was the only sort of history I had.  
Wouldn't you want to know your own story too?

I abandoned a daughter, a ruler and a kingdom  
and ran away with a Trojan man.  
It's been said and decided that I wanted to go.  
It's quite funny to be honest, even I'm not sure if I did anymore.  
They have forgotten my blood is two parts ichor  
They sent a thousand ships and said they were for me.  
Troy was the only woman they wanted.

The moral they intend is to take away is that  
women are responsible for all the evils in the world.  
Fuck them.  
I'd suggest you make your own moral instead.

Mine is that a single woman can uproot  
an entire world of men with the simple act  
of eating an apple, opening a box, loving a prince.

It is no wonder they try everything to make us pliant and vulnerable.

 **Blue and White**

You walk past him in the corridor and you've got to pretend you aren't affected. Because he isn't. You were just twelve and he was just thirteen, after all, both too young to know about love or even speak of it. Because he swore to you it was only a mistake. So you hold your head a little higher. And you make your walk a little faster. And you don't let your gaze fall on him for even a second. Because once you do, the tears fall.

He was crying too.

 **Recognition**

His palms are warm because he fills them with etchings of dates and numbers, like you, like the way the world leaves grass stains on your laundry, like words on paper, like scars on people.

He says his dreams are bigger than yours, and you listen to him wanting a perfect family, a life in education, a girl he thought he loved in the ninth grade, you just dream of soft sheets and no more blood, his dreams are definitely bigger than yours but not bigger than you.

His words have always been a canvas of colors, dimensions of the flesh ripped apart from the seams, he sees those colors too, leaving ink stains on your kitchen floor you open your hands and he gets angry and irritated when you only catch red.

His heart is beating gold, contained by his fists and what he thinks is the truth so the next time he tells you he cares watches the corners of his mouth rise, in attempt  
to fit compassion into his mouth.

 **Weary (a haiku)**

You are so tired  
Is the sun still shining, love?  
please rest on my lap.

 **Silver Girl of the Lowercased World**

Ask me if I still love him, the golden boy who left ashes in my weakening heart, I have burned for him, I have drowned for him and I have fallen for him, from the heaven themselves. Ask me if I love him, so when he is nothing more than an ash boy, look at the trail of light and love he has left in for me in his wake. Ask me if I love him, for when he is nothing more than dust and I am nothing more than the marrow of my bones, let the people know that finally, finally, he craves my touches too.

 **Crowns of Catharsis**

I want you to tell me about every person you've ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, and then tell me why they loved you; because of your face, your smile and your laugh.

Tell me about the nights in your life you didn't think you'd live it through. Tell me what the word home means to you and tell me in a way that I'll know your older brother never tells you but he loves you so.

See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate, and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. If you can ever forgive your father.

Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bask in the warmth of sunlight? And if you were to pick between a suit and long sleeves for formal occasions, you would wear both.

Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?

See, I want to know what you think of your first name, and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your grandmother's joy when she spoke it for the very first time.

I want you to tell me all the ways you've been unkind. Tell me all the ways you've been cruel. Please tell me the times the vein on your neck pulsated because of loud voices and unruly behavior.

Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?

Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?

And if you don't believe in miracles, tell me —

How would you explain the miracle of you entering my life?

There's something holy about the way you spill your soul to me; how it dares to mingle with mine.

See, I want to know if you truly believe in any God or if you believe in many gods or better yet what gods believe in you. See I want to know if you separate yourself and religion. And for all the times that you've knelt before the altar of yourself, have the prayers you asked come true yet? And if they didn't, did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by whom?

I want to know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you're feeling good. I want to know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you're feeling bad. I want to know the first person who taught you, your beauty could ever be reflected on a mirror; the first person to tell you it is not.

If you ever reach enlightenment will you remember how to laugh? To sing? To mourn?

Have you ever been a song?

Would you think less of me if I told you I've lived my entire life and perform on the stage a little off-key? And I'm not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me, those without the courage to unfeel or to unsee. Would you think less of me because I think so much of you?

See, I want to know more than what you do for education. I want to know how much of your life you spend just giving, and if you love yourself enough to also receive some things back.

I want to know if you bleed sometimes from other people's wounds, and if you sometimes feel that the students you have encountered bleed and cry and drink more than you ever had had.

And lastly, let me ask you this:

If you were born a little later would you accept it?

If I was born a bit earlier would you accept it?

No, wait.

That's asking too much —

after all,

this is only the second floor of the building

after all,

this is our first time talking

.

 **Poetry**

Is he poetry to you?

How he takes your broken remnants, healing you piece by piece. The way he holds your quarters and halves making you whole again. Or how he unwraps each layer of your soul witnessing parts of you that no one has seen. Reading the stories of your struggles that stay tucked away in the drawers of your silence that you have never quite opened anymore. The resilience that remains unspoken.

Traveling the map and stars of your body, reaching roads of ruination and homes of obliteration. Because he noticed the walls inside of you crumbling and your morals stumbling. But he stepped on those broken pieces and with each step he destroyed the damage and the heartache. He picked up the wreckage of your life and built a home.

Is he poetry to you?

The way he traces your feelings with his fingertips. Filling all your empty frames with such lovely art. How he wraps you with his words.

Is he poetry to you?

The man who stops time just to hear you. The man who kills himself just to keep you alive. The man who looks past your skin and bones so he can witness the inconceivable, the irrecoverable parts of you.

My love, have you ever thought that you might be poetry to him?

 **Bedtime**

I'm exhausted. I just want to put my childhood to bed and let it sleep. My younger me is still awake inside me; She is so tired - Of all the neglect; All this abuse is draining. She just wants to sleep

Present me is tired of pretending everything is okay. When it's fucking not. It's not okay. I am not okay.

Mama, I'm tired of smiling at you. I'm tired of pretending you were there for me when you weren't.

Mama, I'm tired of making excuses for your controlling demeanor.

Mama, I'm tired of walking on eggshells when you're around.

Mama, I'm done acting I can't keep laughing at funny memories I don't have.

I'm ready for some sleep but the heart-crushing anxiety It is a heavy snorer. It's so damn loud in my head.

Papa, Your voice loves to echo and bounce offs the walls of my bedroom.

Papa, please let me rest.

Papa, let me go.

I'm so weary

Talking, swallowing, breathing and eating on a choked neck are difficult.

Papa, the cigarettes you smoke have stayed in my lungs, Papa the smell of alcohol, papa you were so drunk that time…and I can never sleep in the same room as you anymore.

I'm so exhausted

The panic

The fear

The anger -

It's exhausting.

This mask of a happy girl is heavy and I can't keep wearing it.

The child inside me, She is weeping from delirium. She is begging to be tucked in. She has spent so much pleading for anyone, anyone to take her away. And dammit do I want to let her but the way the past hangs off me like heavy chains and the way the past pushes and pulls at me.

It just won't let me let her go,

Not without giving her a real home not until she is pressed against warm blankets. Not until she is safe. Not until the monsters under bed will always be under, and never with her, sleeping.

-Some bedtime stories are not to be told.

 **To the girl who has the man I love in her arms, (To Justine)**

Please try and stay with him, and his messy morning hair.

Please love him truthfully and wholeheartedly.

Take care of him.

Always give him kisses; I never got the chance to so you're the lucky one.

Give him lots of hugs, he loves the affection. He loves it from behind the most.

Laugh at his corny jokes even if they aren't funny, he's trying and he just wants to make you smile.

Make sure he's always okay, please.

He's not good when it comes to feelings especially expressing them.

Please please please stop using him; it kills me to know that you do.

That boy is so delicate so don't ever try and do anything you know you shouldn't.

You know, he's been through a lot…a lot that no one knows.

Please tell him you love him often, he loves that.

Get him Mcdo fries and burgers from time to time, those are his favorite.

Get him coffee sometimes, those make him sleepy. He doesn't like sugar or milk, just pure black coffee.

Complement him too; his reaction is always so cute and priceless.

Make sure he's always smiling. That boy is golden.

Listen to him playing the piano, love the way his fingers that touch the piano like the way he touches you.

Give him time alone to play video games, he loves playing. He loves playing Naruto, he loves Naruto period.

Let him have daily naps, he needs it and he loves it too.

Stop messaging him and let him spend time with his mom, he's a momma's boy. Video calls happen at 8 am in the morning.

Please take care of that sweet boy; he loves so hard and purely.

I don't want him hurt.

Love him that was my world in your arms okay?

 **Fraction**

Every time I fall apart, take my quarters and halves and make me whole again.

 **Parts  
** **  
**You see, I'm just the bridge of a sad song while he is the chorus of an anthem.

 **Puzzle**

At one point, you gave me a piece of your heart and I gave you one of mine, and we found that we fit better with each other's puzzle pieces than with our own. Now I cannot remember which ones were mine and which were yours.

 **Art**

Making love is an art. It does not require clay or paint or eraser shavings. I gave you pieces of me I thought I surrendered long ago: the bend of my knee, my eyelashes, and the back of my neck.

You whisper sweet nothings, soft and low in my ear and my spine shakes and skin quivers. There is nothing but the heat between our bodies.

Your bedroom is an art gallery we display these bodies, our bodies, like acrylic on canvas. Sweat runs and drips and we call it abstract. The lights are on, like a spotlight, it is loud with the music of our voices that linger through the midnight moon shadows. At this moment, there is no such thing as flaws. We are surrounded by so much art.

And who needs sleep when you can make art? Sweaty, messy, in-the-moment art. I dig my fingers so far into the mattress, I can remember this moment just as well as the last. Your fingers in my hair, and your lips on my neck, your face glistens and I breathe deep. This will always be our way of showing each other's love. Because I am finally the one being art and not the artist.

 **Talent**

I have a talent, born from the gods themselves, and it so loud it has made me deaf.

 **Road**

The road to you was full of carnations, and when I say full of carnations, I mean those with thorns bursting out of their stems, thorns that would leave marks all over my body leaving a trail of blood right on the edges.

The road to you was full of rainbows, and when I say full of rainbows, I mean those that are higher than mountains, taking me days, and sometimes months just to reach the top with mud and sweat covering my entire body.

The road to you was a journey full of beauty, and when I speak of beauty I don't necessarily mean it was easy to obtain or get through, but as hard as it was, I'd do it all over again to get to you. And now that I am here, standing by your doorstep, covered in the vibrant red color of carnations and the beautiful reflection of the rainbow, I catch my breath and I forget what I'm about to say, so I say Hi, and think it's a good start.

 **13 Reasons**

When asked how much you mean to me

I am suddenly at a loss for words

How am I supposed to phrase?

All the love

The caring

Sleepless nights talking until 5 am

Trying to figure out the definition of "us"

I don't think I can quite put that into words

But if I was asked

1\. I love your eyebrows, kind of messy, like you, but still very well-shaped.

2\. Your hands are strong, yet gentle, outlining the tiniest detail of a drawing, but still able to hold mine with the intention of never letting go.

3\. I could drown in your eyes forever and never be bored. The darkness reminds me that there is still room for the light to shine through.

4\. Your mind is endlessly fascinating. If I could, I would dissect every last thought so I could learn more about you

5\. You have the most massive heart. Caring for others is something you do without a single question or hesitation.

6\. I do not love your demons. Some of them I share with you and some of them I have no clue who they are, but I will never hesitate to fight them beside you.

7\. I love your smile, in its crookedness and genuine purity. Seeing you happy will always be the best sight ever

8\. Your stubbornness is something I will always be fighting but never in an angry way because I am too stubborn to let that happen.

9\. Sometimes, I want to bottle up your laughter because it's dark and throaty and breathy and I don't think I will ever get enough of it.

10\. I say you are beautiful, and you never do believe me and, I fear the moment you do, may be the moment you leave.

11\. When you are excited it is the most adorable thing ever. You do this little bounce and you look so content, like nothing in the world can stop you.

12\. I admire your will to live. I know some days it seems like you can't go on, and trust me I know the feeling but I won't let you because we have adventures to go on and I won't do them alone.

13\. I love you for many things, but most of all, I love you for you. You have picked me up and carried me during times of darkness, you have never given up on me, you always see the best in everyone, you never judge or hate or give up too easily. Yes, you may have flaws, but loves, we all do and that's okay.

When I am asked

Just exactly how much you mean to me

I can never find the right words

But I will never stop trying.

 **He tastes like you, only sweeter**

He's sending me flowers and I'm thinking of you choking my neck. He's helping me bake by stirring the batter and I miss you helping me have a panic attack because I broke a bottle. He's stroking my face and I'm remembering you bruising my wrists in public because you were holding on them too tight. He's kissed me so many times and I just miss you yelling at me. He safeguards my boundaries like they're made out of myrrh and I wish you'd come back and overstep all of them. You used to full-force, fool-proof, fracture all of my faith so I can't feel him when he follows the feathers of my laugh lines and I can't recognize what it's like to not be on edge all of the time so I miss teetering back and forth because wondering if I'd fall was so much more fantastic than knowing I won't.

 **Seventeen Things in Seventeen Years**

1\. Life will try and break you down until you're crawling on your hands and knees, until you feel like you are Atlas holding the weight of the world upon your shoulders, until you feel like the raging hellfire inside of your chest is going to combust. These are the moments that will forge you in a fire and make you more unbreakable than diamonds.

2\. We are made of stars and we write that idea till the day we die. At night I stare at my hands and wonder when I will erupt. At night I imagine myself completing another's constellations when we already finished.

3\. You will fall in love, and that is okay. Sometimes we need to fall in love to remember that there is good out there. Fall in love with the boy who sang songs with you, fall in love with your teacher who works too hard, fall in love with that golden boy.

4\. Close your eyes, count to ten, and open them again. You are not alone. I know it may feel like you are the only one suffering, but believe me when I say that you aren't. I was where you are, and now I have talked to more people that have been through much worse than I would like to admit to. You are never alone, not really. You will always be found.

5\. Music can save. Play it as loud as you can and belt songs that defy gravity or not needing his love. Play it while you are on the way to school and while you are in the shower and play it when you want to give up in the middle of the day and when you want to give up in the middle of the night. Just play the music that tugs at your heartstrings, it has saved us.

6\. Nothing in life is easy, not really. You will catch a few breaks here and there, but the rest of the time you will find yourself fighting tooth and nail to make it back to the top. Don't give up, I almost did when we were 10 and if I had I wouldn't be able to witness what the sun looks like shining in his eyes.

7\. You will have scars, on your wrists and on your thighs, and they never fade and that's completely fine. We have won battles that take both of our breaths away, cried more tears than we ever had had and that's completely fine. We are a little girl who grew up too fast and it is completely fine.

8\. We watch the sunrise and watch the sunset. There is something about the sun that screams life; let the light bleed into you and consume you until you shine with it. Sometimes it's the simple things we are missing in life that we need the most.

9\. They will say they love you and then they will turn around and break your heart. You cannot compare your life's worth to the empty spaces that were once filled around you. People will leave (willing or not) and life will go on. Let life go on.

10\. If you are under the impression we are broken, then it is up to you to decide if you are or not. It took me years to admit that I was never quite whole, but when I did it was the most freeing feeling ever. Brokenness does not take away from perfection, and you are the very definition of perfect. Some people think you are the worst but I love you so much even through the rumors and the parts they thought they've seen.

11\. It's okay to let people in, you don't need to cage yourself away from the rest of the world, don't forget to live your life while you pursue safeness.

12\. Theatre will save you when all else fails you, when the world feels all too loud, this is something can make you go deaf. Theatre is home. Theatre is escape.

13\. They are gone, she took her own life and she died in a car crash and he died from cancer and he left. You cannot live your life counting how many people that held a piece of your heart vanished, I'm not saying to forget about them I'm just saying that it's okay to say goodbye; there are people who didn't have a chance to say hello.

14\. It's okay to cry; cry in the shower and in bed and in the train, being sad is okay as long as you don't let it consume you.

15\. Smile, I love our smile when we were 3, toothy and starting to grow; I love it when we were 8 and we lost our first baby teeth. I love our smile when we were 10 and we begged ourselves to live, and I love our smile when we see the paper and the stage. I love our smile when we see him.

16\. For God's sake, don't let them ruin you. You are so strong, you've made it this far and that means you can make it another day. If you can get through today you can get through tomorrow and every day that follows. If you feel like you can't get through the day then sit down and don't move until the light is peaking in through your window.

17\. Never say never. If you think you can't do something try anyway, this is your life, you are the main character of your own story, but you are also the author of your story. Write it however you want, but don't give up halfway through.

 **A six word story**

Let me be your home again.

 **Thorns**

I wish I can cut away the thorns of my carnations before handing it to you

For I plucked them for you but my hands are bleeding too.

 **Response**

I know World War I and II by heart but I short-circuit when asked

"How are you?"

I don't know. I don't know. That wasn't in my reviewers.

I usually know the answer, but I rarely know myself.

 **Suffering  
** **  
**"You are not made for suffering,"

"You are not made for it as well,"

 **Vow**

Fragments of time that we have lost long ago,  
they will all link us back no matter what our love foregoes

 **Found**

And if there is an end to eternity, I still hope to find you there.

 **Guide**

You always told me stars would guide me back home, but they only show up at night. ****

**Wounds  
** **  
**Old wounds still cut deep even when they look like they've healed. The worst pain is when you're screaming out for everyone to see you bleeding out, only for them to tell you that they can only see the old scars. The phantom wounds will kill you, because no one else believes that they are still there.

 **Brown Eyed Seraph**

In the end, she's just a little girl writing a bad story, where everything is lowercase and unfulfilled. Empty lust for empty hearts.

Ink splatters onto her hands like blood.

 **Golden Aphrodite (for Reign Arroyo)**

Golden Aphrodite, with sun-kissed skin and brown hairs, golden Aphrodite that is ethereal in the sun, golden Aphrodite that has love and lost; who mourns and regains. Golden Aphrodite who knows her worth and kneels before God for guidance.

 **Pandora**

Pandora never meant to open such a box, Pandora only ever had childlike eyes and a face that brings out the gifts of the gods and goddesses. Pandora is sincere and warm and is young. Pandora never meant to break hearts or drink alcohol. Pandora is always eternal.

 **We**

We are not a love story, two children bathed in gold, in silver on top of pedestals, at least not yet.

 **Winter**

Everyone tells me that seasons come and go, but why is winter always wrapping the inside my bones? It always feels like the blood inside my veins is frozen, and maybe that's why I always feel like I'm half dead because it won't make me function properly.

 **Unaccustomed**

He still isn't used to her hair though, brown and gold in some lights, black in others; her eyes, sparkling with a kaleidoscope of stars; her voice, words so soft that he can only imagine what his name must sound like.

 **Book Ends**

I can't forget the first poem I wrote about you and I have yet to write my last.

 **Perspective  
** **  
**If you could one day hear every song that I've heard  
Breathe everything I breathed, feel everything I felt  
If you could be my eyes and see the world as I did  
Then maybe you could've loved me  
The way you always wanted to.

 **Trace**

Some days I imagine you lying right next to me, not touching my body, but touching my soul but... you never needed to be close to me to do that, you have always touched my soul even by being just on the stage, or just across me, and I think I'll always carry the weight of your fingerprints on me, even when you have never touched me.

 **Planets**

MERCURY. Don't worry if it feels like you could go up in flames. To move a few inches from the light is always a risk, but look at that star, burning gold, reaching out through chaos and silence wanting and yearning to touch you; and your fierce spirit and your deepest urges of passion.

VENUS. You don't have to sing along with everyone else's orbital path. Sing your own song. You are a guiding glow in the dawn. Dance with brightness and love will come running, swifter than tides to shore and twice as full, a thousand times more tender; a thousand times hotter.

EARTH. Yes, love resides here. Say it again. Love, the blackbird with a beak full of honeycomb. Love, the painting of the cathedrals he built. Love, how his words paint such sweetness in you that you soar and take flight. All of this, here, alive and sun-kissed. Yes, life resides here.

MARS. It's okay to blush bright red. You've seen his shadows and he's seen your dust storms. Laugh with him, make love, and yell. The battle was victorious like there was never any battle in the first place. Speak unarmored. Speak unprotected.

JUPITER. What is love if not unmistakable, so large only a sky could contain it. He takes your hands in his and the gravity of it makes every moon ache with want. You are aching, you are aching and you are aching. But he can't see others are aching for him as well. (He aches for you only)

SATURN. Hold him close, closer than soil holds wheat, closer than how the waves cradle the loose sand, closer than wedding bands hold their shine, closer than clouds hold clouds. Closer and closer and closer, until there are no more rings.

URANUS. When you lie on your side next to him at night, does the frost just outside your windows melt away? Does the cold you have endured for years melt? Does night glisten with how perfectly slow it moves? Is his smile its own small heaven?

NEPTUNE. Love has been here since the beginning, even when no one else saw it. And love will be here with its swirling blue mouth long after we ourselves become unseen. What you make with each other is a freshwater spring blooming in a forest, crisp and glittering in the light. Abundant enough for the drought in your lungs, to fill the well of your heart. Go on. Drink

PLUTO. When you think you are forgotten, when you think you are just the pieces of dust, and the little nuances of graphite, history has made it known that he has tried his best in finding you. You are terribly small in his arms, but to be honest, he did not find you. You found him.

 **Counting**

Twenty-four hours is too many without you.

Twenty-three messages with your apologies.

Twenty-two damning excuses but I'll still forgive you.

At Twenty-one years old…and I still feel like a child around you.

Twenty broken promises but I will still believe you when you whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

Nineteen reasons to run away from this absurd relationship.

Eighteen quotes about toxic people and self-respect that I willingly ignore.

Seventeen kisses after I let you back in.

Sixteen candles you lit to make me giggle and put on lipstick.

Fifteen glances at your smiling face to make me believe my own lies.

Fourteen songs that we danced to that night.

Thirteen I love you's we exchanged before we slept.

Twelve alarm rings that woke us up the next morning.

Eleven seconds it took me to guess who it was.

Ten thousand times I've heard why she needs you again. (I need you too...)

Nine deep breaths to not lose my patient soul.

Eight minutes before you rush out, leaving me in the sheets and my hair ribbons to the floor.

Seven things I break and, push and tug on before I leave your place.

Six of them were my gifts to you; your dress shirt, the glass bottle where I put our initials, the book about medicine, the cologne you wear, the stopwatch I bought in Hongkong, my heart, yes I broke my heart again.

Five times I look around before I leave and feel emptier than your empty dormitory…

Four months later I see you at a cafe.

Three times I look away before I decided to walk up to you.

Two words you whisper as my consolation prize.

One long hug before I walk out and that's our happily ever after - a life without each other.

 **Graveyard**

There's a graveyard inside my mouth because I bury words before they even have a chance to leave my lips, and I promise I've tried to dig them out, but skeletons don't make sounds.

 **Beliefs  
**  
Kyle is not a religious man; he rarely goes to church on Sundays or even on holidays. He did not believe in fate, or destiny or even karma, not even in samsara. He did not bow his proud head to any establishment or beg forgiveness for the sins he had committed.

What he believed in was so much more powerful than that.

He believed in love. Absolute, complete and total love. That much was truly certain. He believed in it so much that each day he would wake up and look at the picture of Myra sitting near his bed, and her face etched into his sketchbooks, and he would smile. He believed that once you loved and that a love as strong as his, could overpower anything.

Even in death.

 **Let Me Write**

Let me write about all the things I couldn't fix. Time and time I can't find good bricks.

My habit of biting my fingernails  
The one toy that I had broken apart that had a sail  
My relationship with my parents  
The burned letter that I have never sent.

The way alcohol burns in my mouth  
how it brings out such wretched drought  
The way that silver pour blood to the south  
How I thought life never had a chance to shout.

The way we met and there were yells and teasing  
the way we hold our hands and tried so hard to hold on  
The way we ended, there were shouts and crying  
the way, I still say your name, like a battle, never won. 

Let me write about all the things I couldn't fix anymore starting with us.

Although wait, there is nothing more to discuss.

 **Like to Like**

How many times have I seen that same sky?

I'm haunted by the repeating dream of an ambiguous you and I.

 **Photosynthesis**

Is that all I am, then? A flower trying too hard to reach out for the sun's rays. I know Carnations better than myself; I know Bellflowers closer than my heart dares to. I love flowers ever since I was a child. So describe me as flowers.

Describe me with velutinous leaves that shake and tremble, maybe I have none at all, maybe I am those little blossoms that have ruined the chances and affairs of Apollo and Aphrodite.

Tell me my pollens has scattered throughout your heart and seeded themselves into your future. Even if this makes you feel like we're romance in cold winter, because flowers are not meant to last forever.

I am a flower – a striped carnation –yet I have loved you. - And I thought no flower has ever loved anything else – yet I remember sunflowers always reach too close to the sun,

 **Learn**

Learn how to walk away. Do it with tears streaming down your face and your heart in your throat. Do it silently, or do it and gasps and screams to the earth; learn how to walk away with your head held high and your feet on the ground. It will take time. It will break your heart. It will hurt and yet we still have to learn it. Because one day we meet someone and know that we can find home within each other. And we will learn how to stay - for them and for us.

 **Damage**

He has always loved her in the way a broken man loves broken things; not knowing how to fix them except in his image; he loves her but that love is fucking terrifying and twisted...but that is the only way he ever knew to love, that's the only love he knows how to give.

 **Hurricane**

I am a hurricane of a girl, not drops of rain, and I will never apologize if I do not fit on the palm of your hand; I am savagely relentless and power-hungry. If you cannot handle me, leave. I have no time for you.

 **Stranger**

On some days I feel like I know everything about you, but really I don't. On some days I feel like I'm returning home but really I am not.

 **For Sale**

This night made me realize how much I have come to hate myself. And I would return

My intelligence, no matter how much I know and the knowledge and wisdom have been translated into medals, awards and contests, I would give it away; I'm sure someone else can use what I know and have manners laced with it.

My hands, these cold hands that can write, can only do so much. My words can only be appreciated if they are for the world. I would give it away; I'm sure someone else can write with these cold hands.

And my voice, that has lilted over the stage with fire and fire and fire. The way the spotlight aims at my neck like a sniper's range. I would give it away, my voice is too scathing and unprepared slides, I'm sure someone else can use it with rain and not thunder.

To make me unhate myself.

 _I hate myself so much and it hurts._

 **Omission**

I feel like I could live and cried into your arms tonight.  
I like you.  
I c night.  
I feel like I could live tonight.  
I li ve in you.  
I fe l l and cried.  
I li ed to night.  
I feel co ld tonight.  
I could d ie in your arms  
I feel l o ve in you tonight.  
your s.  
I feel like your s tonight, 

**Mosaic**

I did everything I said I was going to do. I left. I moved on. I tried. I picked up all the pieces of my life and mosaicked them back together. I took all the ugly greys, the harshest blacks and the lovely pinks and the brilliant silvers. I took every memory and moment that broke me or built me and saved me; stacked them into a picture that people will look at awe, into a puzzle that no one will ever dare to ruin; because they cannot arrange or fix it as well as I did.

After all the blood, sweat, and tears; I don't know. I just thought the stained glass would be clearer.

 **Mourning**

Forgive me, for I am in mourning.

I am mourning everything we could have been.

I'm mourning all the futures we planned together:

I'm mourning the little house across the beach, and a little adopted boy.

I am mourning the 2 A.M messages and the midnight phone calls.

I'm mourning the way the world lights up along with my phone screen when you message me.

I'm mourning the way your hair looks after the shower.

I'm mourning the way you say my name and how your lips look when you smile at me.

I'm mourning the way you bite your straw.

I'm mourning the way it feels to hold your hand and have you rest your head on my shoulder.

Yes, I am mourning, the tears down my face are unstoppable and my chest, it burns and it burns and it burns.

I'm mourning the way you always say my eyes look pretty in the night light.

I'm mourning the chance that we never got.

I'm mourning the fact I see you in every face despite even in my dreams, you're still miles away.

I'm mourning the way your hair feels in my fingers and how you close your eyes.

And I'm mourning the fact I haven't felt this way in years and for the first time I had hope.

I'm mourning the happiness I have lost.

I'm mourning the grief I've given you.

I'm mourning every ounce of pain I have brought on you.

I'm mourning the fact I cannot take it all on myself.

I'm mourning that I cannot fight the demons inside your head.

I'm mourning that I cannot stitch myself onto your heart.

I'm mourning all the chances I could have taken but was too scared.

I'm mourning, and my hand clutches my chest, and my fingernails dug too deep and all the wrong decisions I have made.

I'm mourning the thousands of words I have written for you.

I'm mourning the days I've spent crying over you.

I'm mourning the hours I couldn't sleep over you.

I'm mourning the songs I've sung for you.

And I'm mourning you.

I'm morning how you roll your eyes after my jokes but love them nonetheless.

I'm mourning all of the moments I just wanted to tell you you're the most beautiful thing in the entire universe but I was too scared to.

I'm mourning the way you look at me.

I'm mourning all the letters I have written to you but cannot bring myself to send.

I'm mourning the way you smile after we kiss.

I'm mourning that you took me the way I am.

I'm mourning the way we made love.

I'm mourning your "how would you like to wake up to this every day next year?"

I'm mourning how despite all your darkness you were always like sunshine to me.

Forgive me, but I am in mourning for all the futures I dreamt up and all the words I over-thought.

Forgive me; for I am mourning the most beautiful dream, I had in this hellish nightmare.

 **Stars**

In the beginning, God invented helium and hydrogen then came oceans, fur and limestones, blood and teeth. In between all of this burning, burning, burning, all of this death, celebrations and war –We tilt our heads back to look at the sky, and there is history, reflections of the past, already dead. Reflections of great kings and damned tyrants.

When God drafted our atoms from river clay and sculpted us, He knew we would all end up like those stars someday; we were created from the same things after all, (the same iron, the same oxygen, the same fate, the same death,)

 **Mind Reader**

If you could read my mind, you'd see a thousand papers scattered around, filled with broken poetries and senseless proses, full of woeful verses with mournful pieces of unfinished stories; those are yet to be written and failed to be spoken.

If you could read my mind, you'd hear tortured screams and unmuffled and angry weeps, from shattered dreams; kept in a myriad of notebooks, scribbled on a razor of bloodstained words, slicing and slicing, and slicing - in my head.

If you could read my mind, you'd see the shadows that have stayed within me; you'd hear the bellows, screeching the words:

"I'm tired,"

"I'm a failure,"

"I'm stupid –"

I know it sounds absurd, it's pathetically foolish and seems too rubbish; more and more people call me, golden.

If you could read my mind, you'd feel the tears I had always failed to cry; the repression of the burdens placed upon me. You'd see the people that make the weak weaker; you'd see the monsters that consume my head; you'd hear the howls that failed to be freed; you'd see the heart that still bleeds and bleeds. Sometimes I think it won't ever stop.

If you could read my mind, you'd see the face I've failed to show back then, the face I've faked back then. If you could read my mind, you'd see a character I had ever failed to become.

If you could read my mind, you'd be able to read a book you never wished to touch and read,

But sometimes I still wish

Someone could read my mind

 **Apple  
** **  
**If I were to compare myself to something; I would be an apple. Sweet and brittle; a poisonous thing.

 **Rain**

I want to write

nothing but the rain.

I want to write

everything but the rain.

 **Memories**

As I stood alone in the rain  
I smiled, I never minded the pain  
I still remember that wretched day  
when you started to walk the other way

It was sad, you didn't say goodbye  
they said you didn't want to see me cry  
But I know it wasn't the reason why  
It was nothing but a bitter lie

I remember that day, November 11  
I smiled for real that time  
I felt the touch of heaven  
I felt like it wasn't a crime

Some day after that simple kiss  
I was stuck in such bliss  
for I was special again  
you dried up the pouring rain

Then… you stopped seeing me  
In your heart, I was never there  
I drifted far out to the sea  
The loneliness too much to bear

I tried everything to get you back  
I didn't know what to do  
Slowly but surely I started to crack  
I was so lost without you

As I stood alone in the rain  
I cried, I always hate the pain  
You forgot that wretched day  
Acting like you didn't go away

 **Conversations with the Sky**

I. This never ending rain

Hides my broken tears

It freezes all my pain

Exposes all my fears

VI. Now the rain doesn't feel so cold again

Let it cleanse the memory you have stained

I can feel it wash away all the guilty all the shame

Things will never ever be the same

 **Companion**

We always tend to see our Shepherd, our messiah, our home and our lover as someone strong, handsome and he guides your hips to fit his, he kisses the back of your hand gently, and the way he ushers you back to his heart, with sweet, sweet apologies, and the way he combs through your hair and tell you, "Come back, come back home, come back to me,"

We always tend to forget that, he is restless and the bags under his eyes have darkened over time, that his lips tremble when you graze them and how loud his chest is when he breathes harshly.

You see sometimes, your Shepherd is just like you. Broken, tired but still, still undeniably happy that he finds you.

 **Song**

You were once my favorite song, that I know every lyric to, I used to sing every day, in hallowed corridors, in my room, the crook of your glasses, your boyish smile and your warm hands, a song that my heart knows inside out, but I do not sing anymore because someone else is.

 **A Lesson in Breathing**

All that hatred didn't look good on you before, what makes you think it'll look better now? Breathe, let go and forgive. Understanding will always be your jewelry.

 **Depression**

It did stay; it has known the darkest cesspool of your mind. The first time you cut and the blood dripped on your skirt. It stayed on the nights you would cry yourself to sleep and wake up even more tired in the morning.

You used to stand still in the coldest of showers to remind yourself that you are still alive, barely fighting but alive. You would stay there long enough for someone to notice.

You used to pray to God. Pray that you'd die already. So it won't hurt anymore, so you won't cry anymore.

 **Actuality**

I will always try to be in the quiet corners of everyone else's life; the girl who talks too much, a writer who felt too much, a student who knows too much, I tried to be so quiet, but your heart…it heard me anyway.

\- but your heart doesn't want to hear me anymore.

 **Hypocrite**

You wield your sword as if it were a beacon of justice and hide your cruelty under a robe of might,

 **Fuel**

I've spent months trying to find love that will never come close to yours. Not one soul can probably compare. I've never had anyone write about me before until tonight. You compared me to a raging forest fire and that of a shooting star in the same stanza. You call me a calming breeze in the summer but truthfully, I am a rock band; shaking in this body, fearful of another dead-end lover. You made those words come to life for a girl who needed a little fuel to ignite the fire.

 **Kindness**

I have spent years knowing how men aren't supposed to be nice. But you came, with a soft celestial air that came in waves of trust, and warmth and the depth in your eyes; you held your tongue to the rumors and the way people whisper my name that slid with yours, you held back your fists and shrug it off with laughter and laughter and laughter.

The day you lost a bit of yourself, the day you shouted curses and the way the silence was too thick and your voice too cold, the way I couldn't breathe.

It is also the day you apologize and told me it will never happen again. Let the water flow under the closed bridge.

You showed me that some men are nothing but kind.

 **Revolution**

You are my revolution.

 **Macrocosm**

He wanted the world to burn, and he succeeds with a trail of cigarette burns and his wits and he wonders why it does not ignite her. Soon enough she will, she will, she will. _She does not_.

She already has lit paths ablaze already, hands thickened with work and a smile to turn men's' head around with the confidence she has.

They meet and collide as a lighted candle, illuminating pathways of darkness and as a raging torrent of fire ready to devour.

 **Endless Wedge**

And what you have given to me were times spent like a dream, and what you have given to me was the brightest smile that gleam and what you have given to me is a past I'll always love,

But what you could not give to me is a future with both of us

But what I have given to you was a life held by lace, but what I have given to you were the tears that fell down my face, but what I have given to you was just my foolishness

And what I could not give to you was a moment for you and me.

 **Angry**

I had been angry for years. I had it all planned out, what I would say to him when I finally have the chance to ran into him…It would have been better if he has remembered me.

 **Mercy**

You are too pure for me or for anyone my body, my heart and my mind, hurt you as the world hurts God.

 **Lifetime**

"You may not be my first, but you can be my last,"

"I will, if you'll be mine,"

 **Urgent Whispers**

"What did you say to me all those years, when you'd make love to me and I was almost near...?"

"You're almost home."

 **Wish**

I would want to create a world where no one can destroy by understanding it.

 **Gone**

Our time came and went by so fast  
I now look back and make it last 

**Gratitude**

I thank the heavens that I do not look like what I've been through.

I do not look like the scars that just do not fade away from my skin. I do not look like the tears I cried every single night, looking at the altar. I do not look like the burned pages of an upside-down notebook. I do not look like the distorted song I used to sing years ago.

I thank the heavens that I do not look like what I've been through.

I thank the heavens, I thank, I thank and I thank.

 **Firsts on a Staircase**

My parents told me my first steps were at the bottom steps of our staircase, two little wobbly legs daring to go further down, two little wobbly arms clinging to the ledges of a staircase.

I remember the first scars on my whole body, knees stubbed with blotches of red, soaking through my pajamas; I remember the tears and the pain, and the coldness of the wood.

I remember the place where my best friend, my forever constant, that's where the magic started, we would eat snacks, or we would say the secrets, fears, love, hope and passions.

I received my first kiss, on the staircase of the school; between the third and fourth floor. From a boy, who came and left too fast, and his eyes encased with the glasses I still have today. I gave him my heart that day too, and I hope to get it back someday.

 **Alcohol**

I hate it. I always hate the scent of alcohol. I remember when I was young my mother would never talk to my father after he's gone drinking. To this day, whenever he does she would sleep next to me. I hate it. Even though I drink, I drown myself in water the day after.

I learned to stay away from my father when he gets to drink too much, because he might hit me or get too close. I sleep in my brothers' room trembling. I wake up leaving a glass of juice and biogesic on the safe table my father sleeps near to.

The first time you drank alcohol, you messed up my bridesmaid dress and I had to clean you up at the bay, your forehead hot and your words slurred. Your palms trembling and you wanted to jokingly die.

I hate it when you drink. Because I know what happens. How many girls would look at you at the bar. How they are amazed and enticed by your ever-growing tolerance. How they want to bring you in their own dorms. I hate it. I hate the scent of alcohol.

When the day is over, and you come back to my arms, a sloppy kiss to a forehead and heavy sigh, I get up. Sleep on the couch and return to your side with orange juice.

 **Audacity**

Strength is not measured on the audacity to hate but is measured by your audacity is to smile.

 **False Premonition**

I thought the way he smiled for me, the smile that was genuine, the smile where you can see the spark in his eyes, his eyes aren't just tired was love

 **Dream**

Love is a dream someone else had last night.

\- No I don't want to hear about your dream.

 **Evident**

And you know this, always knew this. That if you love him, he too will suffer.

\- Blood is what binds you both first and foremost, but you wonder if it will ever be enough

 **Definition**

You will always be my definition of love, on how I will always value someone else's achievements before my own. On how I value every time we spend every summer and every touch and every caress. On how much I value you as a person and not everyone's golden boy.

 **Conviction**

I was never meant for the stage or poetry or even medals but I'm sure, I was so sure that I was meant for you.

 **Counterpoint**

You asked for intimacy; in how the moon filled with night as it flowed through your heart. You asked for secrets, the points in my life where I retched myself, or how much hate I hold for my mother, and how stupid I am to have faith in your security.

When you begged for my blood, I didn't hesitate, I took out a knife, but you took out a gun. You asked for my life and then dared to call it love.

 **Lessons on being loved by a Prophet**

They try so hard to walk away from you; you are their desert; their devil. You are the only thing that ever came close in tempting them from their divinity. The only thing that ever made him questions his journey for salvation.

You never even got that close, not by a hair's breadth, not even touching his hand, not even kissing them.

You are loved by a prophet, and nothing is crueler than that; his eyes watch the way you move and reality shivers.

 **Occultation**

Did you hear the story about the sun who loved the moon so much, that he died every night just to let her breathe?

Yes, I did, about how the sun with his impassioned mind dared to keep her soft tears abound, how the sun in his blazing glory basked in her quiet eyes. But you don't hear about the moon, how it is ready, to let him show off his light to everyone else, that he cannot love her alone, that his light is needed by everyone else. She breathes and then she waits.

 **Beguilement**

You once told me, the most sinful thing you can ever do is to forget. You raped someone because you forgot their rights to their body. You stole something because you forgot that it was not yours. You got angry and hurt someone because you forgot how to be patient and hold your tongue.

You are the kindest man I ever met and you wear forgiveness like a crown.

Would you ever forgive me if I soon forget the way the sun shines in your eyes? If I forget the many afternoons we spent talking about the things that scare us? If I forget the way we would walk in early mornings; towards another day? If I forget the way you made feel me so happy and loved? Will God ever forgive me for forgetting you?

I like to think I cannot forgive easily, I can't even forgive myself.

Do you ever wonder if I can forgive the way you forgot to reply to a letter I wrote for you? If I can forgive the way you forgot Wednesdays matter so much to me? If I can forgive you for the way you forgot to lay down our boundaries? If I can forgive the way you forgot that you would stay despite everything? If I can ever forgive you for forgetting to say goodbye?

You told me once, the most sinful thing you can ever do is to forget.

Will God ever forgive you for forgetting me?

 **Aftermath**

Everyone has warned me about your reverent voice and kind eyes, but this was exactly what drew me in. Your passion. The fire that sparked underneath your pale skin when you talked about the things you loved; the things you worshipped. Your desire to explore, to find yourself in streets and temples, to be free, in a way. To escape. It was contagious and intoxicating.

I got high on your view of the world and drunk on your stories.

But I'd known what you were all along. You were a liar, just like me. It takes one to know one. But what has knowing a punch was about to be thrown ever done to soften the blow? It doesn't make goodbye any easier to bear. I saw it coming from miles away and it still, still, still, hurt.

It's funny, isn't it? How we're told some things aren't good for us and we still give them a go because sometimes our hope and our wish to prove everyone wrong outweigh caution. And sometimes going the wrong way is the right thing to do, because we learn to open our eyes to what we could not see before.

 **Secret**

You never were his dirty little secret; you are the reason why he is ashamed of himself.

 **Reunion**

I have never felt so at peace unless I am standing next to him, despite the humid, the afternoon sun and the buzzing chatters of people. His presence makes me feel like it's warning me that I am corrupting something so divine. Every heated glance I steal from him, his educated eyes still tell me that he is a journey I will likely happen to stumble and scrape my knees on. My soul has tried so hard not to mix with his. This broken and yearning soul is waiting for this reverent man, to be at peace with his cheeky smile and kind eyes.

 **Tainted**

Some nights, I realize the gravity of our actions. I become more aware, even if only temporary; of how detrimentally you affected my mind and my young existence. Sometimes it seems like you shouldn't have been a big deal -like what you did, what you exposed me to, should not matter- but some nights, when I am alone and capable of being honest with myself, I know the truth.

Maybe if I had spoken up, you wouldn't still have a hold on me. Perhaps it is not even the visual memories- perhaps it is the memory of the heaviness that had set in my stomach, the confusion that had swarmed in my mind, the still, uncertain fear and love that had manifested my heart. Maybe what still holds me back is the fact that now -only now- do I know what you did to me.

Tell me, when I one day come to trust someone enough to hold me, to explore my body, to look me in the eyes and move their body close to mine, will you enter my mind? Will that dark, confusing night of stripped will taint my mind forever? Will it taint experiences of loving, pure intention? Will it taint my future, just as it has tainted my past and my present? Will my body ever forgive me for letting you touch it, my mind ever forgive me for letting you invade it? You do not even know that you still have this suffocating, blinding hold over me, and yet somehow I still allow myself to ask, will you ever let me go?

 **Echoes**

My voice is not music to my ears.  
This record player is broken,  
trapped in a loop,  
repeating the same sounds  
over and over and over and over and—

Everyone tells me, my voice is crisp and well enunciated

I don't.  
it falls  
it crashes  
it burns.

I can feel it coming which is worse.  
I know, as I raise my hand in religion class  
that my mouth is always going to betray me  
and this record player is going to skip  
and I'm going to fall and crash and burn over

For ten seconds of agony,  
knowing everyone is looking at me  
because they expect the poise and the simple glide my  
mouth masters

Of course, there is no logic to this music

Because in biohchem class I can say "phenylthiocarbamide"

But in the next sentence I can't say "epitome"

And no, slowing down and taking a deep breath

And thinking about what I want to say

Does not help.

I am known to be raw and firm and eloquent

I think it just sounds condescending as hell. 

The only reason I'm not stuttering in this spotlight everyone has on me is because I have a paper in front of me. a poem written word for word, letter for letter, and yet I still forget the words my heart remembers,

I know I am smart and I am clever

But sometimes I think people pay more attention

to the fact that I am not stuttering

Instead of what I'm trying to say. 

All I ask of you is to listen to my record scratch voice. Listen to the music that isn't perfect and the notes are off-key but the message is there.

Don't try to sing over me.

Just listen

And wait for me

To use my voice.

 **Let me be, let me go**

I'm willing to ask you about your deepest fears and greatest love, but I tell myself I wasn't going to have feelings this time; (please no not this time, god please, please)

So I'm trying not to understand. I'm trying not to ask questions. I'm trying to run from the conversation.

I don't think it's working.

Stop holding my heart in your hands.

 **Mountains**

There are some mountains that we have carried, that we were only supposed to climb.

 **Fabrication**

Tell him that you want to write him poetry, he'll laugh good-naturally, but god he'll look endeared.

My dear, he won't lie, won't say he didn't love you,

Didn't love this,

Didn't love hearing his name in between the lines of every prose you have read aloud to a room full of people that will never know him,

Only this version of him that you have created,

Only this metaphor he has become, this simile he has been, this story on the edge of your tongue, unraveling from your mouth in tangled balls of afternoons and oh-so-funny memories.

Hey, remember the time-

Remember how-

Remember when-

Remember the day he left?

Because you will never forget. 

He did not warn you he was leaving.

You came home to an empty cubicle

And when the echoes came back,

Holding hands with the silence he left behind,

It was your fault for pretending this home was anything but occupied.

You love writing him poetry; you just weren't his favorite poet.

\- When he asks what inspires you.

 **Conquer**

"The galaxy, a thousand suns; All there ever will be," he said. When I asked him what he thought was his to conquer, "I want what all men want, I just want it more."

I laugh into my handkerchief "What if all men want me?"

"Exactly,"

 **Bourgeoisie Boy**

Before you realize you  
cannot conquer the sun  
I think, my love,  
you will set and douse yourself into flames

revolution sits well on you  
a red coat, which bleeds martyrdom  
the flag you hold in your left hand  
the gun in your right  
the golden glint in your eyes

But…I am begging you; please think old age sits well on you too…

 **Parable**

I didn't read this far into our story only to slam the cover close and stop loving you. You could try tearing out a number of pages, but I would still recite Crowns of Catharsis in poetry night sometime when I'm older. If you tossed our story into a river, I would create bubbles that would carry the tune of our song to be heard. If our book were to be burned by the flames of passion then the smoke would dance in the light. I know not if we'll be together till the end of our days, or fizzle out like stars in the night.

 **Motherland**

A government without its people has no power, but the people without its government will be lost as well

 **Safe Word**

"Hiyas give me a color,"

 _red_

The way he hovers above you and you feel the harsh bites on your shoulder and the way he roughly binds your hands to the bedpost, you see the savage lust in his eyes and you shiver a bit in the black velvet sheets. His calloused fingers playing you the way you like it, fast and hard. His other hand wraps around your neck and the blood rushes out. __

 _yellow_

He teases you slowly, the way he slides in and out of you at his own pace and not yours, the way you feel his breath on your skin, and how he whispers such dirty words, that you feel another build up in the threshold of your heart. __

 _green_

After both of you had spent this night well, he kisses your forehead softly, gingerly caress your red wrists and lays you to rest, as he maps out the hickeys he left on your bodies, a constellation of the love between you two. _  
_

**Result**

In the end,

If all else fails and I can't give

you what you need,

I hope I'll still be remembered,

not as the one who stole the Galaxy from under your feet,

but the one who helped you

stick glow-in-the-dark star stickers

all over your bedroom ceiling."

 **Lost**

If I were, to be honest, I never wanted to be lost.

I am at loss on what to pursue; I can help people with being a lawyer or a psychologist, I have the mind and the will to help and be selfless, but I want to write first and foremost, and I want to be on the stage, I have the passion, the charisma, I want to help myself and be selfish.

I have always been a road between fixing the painting and the puzzle pieces my mother has left for me or go and create my own.

If I were, to be honest, I am always lost.

I am at lost at trying to be this student who speaks on the stages with the confidence of the blaring spotlight, to be the smart brainchild of numerous teachers who told me I was lucky to be their student, to stay focused and be on time, always, always, always the perfect child.

I look to the only place I have been found; the place where I can I can decipher codes and also crack jokes at my faulty writing, the place where I can have a perfect score on an exam and also the child who struggles with not breathing right.

I just want to be lost in his eyes.

 **Kathmandu**

You tell me I am too much (always a lot to handle) and I laugh like breaking waves, like shattering glass, like crumbling cities. I am only too much for you because you cannot stand freedom: when I ride with car windows down, when I laugh too loud in the middle of a quiet room. When I am overdressed and I don't care how people look at me. You are an iron bar and I am the ivy around it: bending, growing, and overtaking you. You want to make me stone but I am too light to keep a hold of and trying to strangle conformity into me is killing you. You just can't stand the wind in your hair.

 **Death as a person**

Death as a person is the professor you fantasize about so much that he becomes a totally different person in your head. You write nostalgic poems about his appealing and alluring beauty and how his smile lights up your world but in reality, he is nothing but a facade that secretly creates darkness in the world. Most days you look up to the sky and you remember him as your bright star but the sad reality is that he is a black hole that has heartlessly sucked the life out of you.

He is so perfect and angelic in your mind that you romanticize his cruelty and his anger. In the end, you cry yourself to sleep because this time he really tore you apart along with the perfect image of him that you carefully cradle in your delusional head. You end up wishing that he remained a flawless picture in your head but the reality is he takes, destroys and smiles just like the Devil himself.

 **Repetition**

I would do it again, and again and again. Ask me – what is my name.

 _Kath, Kath, Kath._

I would do it again and again and again. Ask you – if whatever we're doing is okay.

 _It is, it is, it is._

I would do it again and again and again. Ask ourselves – what day it is.

 _Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday._

For all that it's worth, I'd never, I'd never; I'd never give away the privilege of having met you.

 **But He Did**

He was so strong; you could always feel it emanating from him. Parts of it, made you giddy, to feel that strength and power above you. The other part of you was fearful because he could do anything he wanted from you. Fuck you, hurt you, and leave you

He won't, you know he won't.

 **Sunlight**

Maybe I was holding onto you

Because you felt like sunshine

And all my life I had simply been in darkness

Waiting for the sun to pour through.

 **Notice of Eviction**

Child, I could understand why you have fallen in love with him. You have fallen in love with his hearty laugh, turned his aged eyes into astronomy. Recall how much you crave his devout touch and voice; the way his roughened hands brush your hands.

But child, I have been in here longer, I am the one who gets to put my hands into his hair and massage his scalp; I am the one, who folds his clothes, cooks for him, mixes his coffee on cold mornings. The one whom he whispers sweet nothings to; how the back of his hand brushes my cheek gingerly.

My child, tear out your poetry; wipe the tears in your eyes and fix your hair. He is my home; first and foremost. I want you to leave my home.

 **Keys**

I want to come back to him again, see the way he likes to feel the smooth surface of the staircase, to see the way the afternoon sun in his eyes, to talk to him, even for just an hour; and we'll laugh about everything and anything.

I want to stop crying in my home.

After that, I'll show him the lasts of my poetry that have his name hidden in the letters; try and finally hold his hand, and hug him, the way I try to hold the world.

I'll see to it that, his arms still have warmth; for they have comforted me in times when I thought that breathing (the easiest thing for a human being) was hard.

I'll see to it that, his eyes that know when I was pained or refuse to look into his, still have that depth and passion in them.

After checking everything and anything…after I see it is fit for me to leave.

I'll close the door to that home.

And maybe, just maybe, I will have the courage to give the keys back to the woman who has the real rights to his home; because the keys I have are only the duplicates and she has the real ones.

 **Thoughts in Warm Sheets**

How long has it been since the last time I have lain with you? Since I felt your calloused hands on me and the way you kiss my lips ever so softly. Since the last time, I felt like I belonged to someone and someone belonged to me. It has been so long.

 **Falling in Love**

I do not want to fall madly in love again, I do not want to turn his eyes into astronomy, or mason his hands into steel, I do not want to turn his words into hymns, and I do not want to turn his mind into a treasure that I thought I was lucky to find; please never again.

I want to fall peacefully in love instead, I just want to see his kind eyes, and hold his hands, I just want to be touched by his heart and be in awe of his mind. Just those please, please, please.

I do not want to fall madly in love again. I do not want to lose myself again.

 **Lines**

I always thought we were parallel lines; never touching but always seeing each other from afar. It's heart-shattering to know that we are actually tangents, bound to touch each other once and forever be parted.

 **Infatuation**

I fell in love with a young god once but I have forgotten I was only human.

 **Goodbye**

It's difficult to say goodbye to the one person I only ever wanted to say hello to.

 **Dictionary**

I have always tried to make a dictionary about the words I can use to finally describe him to describe the way I finally met him.

Love (n) – Wednesday.

Naiveté (v) – the act of looking into his eyes and trying to decipher the words he tries so hard to protect.

Passion (v) – he reads all my poetry, forwards, backward and sideways, the only person to ever do that.

Wonder (v) – the way his smile lights up my dull days.

But to be honest all I can ever make is a dictionary of the words I can use to describe the way I finally lost him.

Destroyed (v) – I want to write about the world, I want to write about a home, but that only means writing about him.

Betrayed (v) – someone else was in his home.

Hurt (v) – news broke up due to the silence he left and can never take back.

Lost (n) – Wednesday.

 **Never Forget**

As weeks go by, no matter how draining life may be, or how heart breaking events have been; never ever forget to create art

 **End**

It'd be nice if I could keep on writing till the end of time

It'd be nice if I could keep making poems until the end of time.


	3. Chapter 3

_On the Eight Day_

 **Recovery**

I think there are pieces of me still glued to you; so stubbornly stuck to your skin. My widening eyes, the color of my lips, my keen memory and my perception.

But she's been waiting for you at home, massaging away the tension in your back as the remainder of me is loosened by the lavender scented oil I once bought you for Christmas. And with each night, with each massage, you shed me like dead skin and she sweeps your memories of us underneath the rug.

 **Flame and Ashes**

You and I were a flame once. And now, we are nothing but ashes of second-hand cigarettes waiting to be taken away by wind.

 **Maybe**

In another lifetime maybe we meet in a coffee shop, at a play, maybe in a bar. In another life you have better intentions or I could ask for more. In another lifetime I would ask you to stay or you would have never left.

 **Cathartic Crowns**

Every person you are in love with, are immortalized in your writing, and it is a quaint thing. Telling the world how much you have your pieces taken from you. The way you loved them was consuming, and then tell me why they loved you; because of your face, your smile and your laugh.

You have told me the nights, you almost bleed your wrists to death and I can't afford to tell you the nights I tried to stab myself.

I can see in the way your fingers tremble; the first time you felt the weight of hate, have the bones of your legs ever cracked because of the pressure? Because the smooth skin of your palms has been hardening.

You are a child that loves the rain because in the early mornings you put your hand out to the drops of the sky, but you are also a child that loves the sun, because in the early mornings, your hair is lighter and your smile is brighter.

Anger is the way my father left. Hate is the way my mother never talked to us after.

Your first name is derived from history, and it shows, your keen memory, your perceptive reasoning. I notice that when people first meet you, they bow unknowingly.

You are an open book, and I have read most of the chapters in it. The uncertainty in your voice when we are together, the milk box every morning, a cat snuggling into your knee in the garden, and sneaking in an ice cream stick during lectures.

You believe that love is not a finite source.

You believe we don't really have one true love, and we just don't have enough time to find the others.

There are some things you do not believe in though, —

You do not believe you would have lived through the age of ten

You do not believe that you are a forgiving person.

You do not think that people will remember the color of your eyes.

Remember how I told you the most dangerous thing a person can do is to forget?

I admit, I may forget if they were black, or if they were brown, but I know the world is in them.

You told me that if you ever got a chance to choose your own parents, you would never choose them again, and you never did look at me at that time.

You told me that summer nights in España, is a place where you finally belong to someone and someone belongs to you. That the boy you loved and knew all the parts of you is the color of gold.

I do wonder and I do want to ask at times…what is my color, your favorite subject, do I teach well?

What have you written up until now?

At times I want to say what really happened between my mother and my father, at times I want to talk about how it was hard to pick up my life and start over again, how a life in education has made me miss a lot of opportunities in my own, but I wanted to have Wednesdays with your smile instead.

Because your young face was comforting, you approach everything with a smile, you hand letter when you are bored or I see you walking alone from the clinic and as much as you are a storyteller, you are a listener.

I want to tell you that yes I have bled from other people's wounds, and I bled from yours the most.

And lastly, let me tell you this to answer all your questions.

Your keys were never just duplicates, I just needed to replace the lock, because there is more than the world than a jaded professor that fakes his smiles, that hides everything with a laugh. There is more to write than the sun in my eyes, my warm hands, or my reverent voice -

That's telling you too much —

after all,

that was only the second floor of the building

after all,

that was our last time talking.

.

 **Day**

Loving you was like watching the sunset. At the moment, it was beautiful, and warm, and felt like coming home; but when it was over; I can only feel the darkness, and the emptiness and the coldness.

 **Remember**

I remember the day I realized I lost you; I remember waking up, hopeful, happy, expecting the euphoria to come, and being hit by the stark realization that we haven't spoken in two months,

I haven't seen you in two months, I've spent every day since pretending I'm not plagued by your memory, of what could have been; pretending that every poem I write isn't for you. I haven't seen you in two months and I'm going to pretend I didn't get the news of not seeing you in forever

 **Silly Girl**

I don't know what I was expecting. How could you, with your sunshine smile, kind eyes, and quiet laughter; you, who is deeply in love with her, ready for forever, ever want someone like me? Me, who is not beautiful, delicate, or desirable; me, mouth full of knives, shaking and numbing fingers, and ripped thighs; who has nothing left to offer but sadness. Of course, you would never love someone like me because there's nothing to love.

 **Start a Conversation**

I want to sit with you here and tell you I am doing better. Tell you that I now go home with a friend by my side or that I do not eat alone anymore, that I do not struggle to get out of bed. Tell you that because I do not talk about my sadness, it means there is nothing left to talk about.

I want to tell you so badly that I am better. But that would be lying, and the only thing I'm okay at is not lying. You see, I get out bed, only because the nightmares are too much to bear; I do not talk about my sadness, because there is no one left willing to listen anymore.

I have run out of metaphors to say: "the only reason I haven't killed myself, is because I am scared of failure." I have run out of pretty words to say: "I am not better."

 **Point of Interest**

I'm scared that loving you was the most interesting thing about me.

 **Musings**

Did you know that it is impossible?

To imagine a color that you've never seen before?

I wish I knew how to tell you that there are still days I do not know if I will make it to thirty. There are still days I crave to see what the inside of my arms looks like, and I go to sleep, hoping that tomorrow never comes.

I wish I knew how to tell you that, no, I'm not okay. I haven't been okay for a very long time. I don't think I've ever known how to be okay. I am uncomfortable in the thought of being okay, because what if this pain—these shaking hands, numbing mouth, bent over the school toilets—is the only noteworthy thing about me?

I am uncomfortable not knowing who I am without this constant hole in my chest; because, what if without the ache, I find that there is nothing else there? Nothing worth to write about, nothing worth to notice. What if this pain is who I am?

Did you know—it is impossible to imagine a color you've never seen before?

 **Begin Again**

If I could start over, there would be no beginning. I would never introduce my tongue to your name; never let myself become a falling grace from your lips.

If I could start over, there would be no us; I wouldn't be something for you to grace yourself, and you wouldn't be something for me to immortalize with my words.

If I could start over, go back to day one, knowing everything I know now; like what it's like to be swallowed whole by an empty void, I wouldn't.

You see, there was a time when the concept of me did not exist without you; I was merely pieces of a whole, which couldn't exist without you to complete the picture.

I thought myself smaller; folded myself into corners, and hidden behind a pew, I thought myself gone for so long, hoping that, one day, there would be nothing left to think about.

I allowed myself to be destroyed by the hurricane that is you. Enchanted by your resolving thoughts, filled with promises of tomorrow, and recovery. I was blinded by your smile, never noticing your razor blade fingers until my skin was stained red.

Like all hurricanes, though, you left as quickly as you came. Your destruction paved its way through my world, not caring about what you left behind; leaving only me, swallowed by the debris of our love.

You may be the storm, but I have lightning in my fingertips, and everything I touch is always left a little more explosive. If it could start over, there would be no water to precipitate.

 **Think of the Future**

Before you go, talk to me one last time, and promise me you'll never hurt another student as you've hurt me.

 **Finished**

There was a time I thought you loved me. You wanted to know every dark thought in my brain; you wanted to see me at my lowest point. Truth is, though, it was not love. I was desperate for love, and you were desperate for a sense of purpose. However, you cannot kiss me well; you cannot love me and make me recovered. You are not the cast to my broken spirit. I am not the ice pack to your bruised ego. I am not here to make you feel useful.

 **To the person who may one day complete my constellation:**

Please, do not compare me to a piece of art. Yes, the sentiment is nice and appreciated, but please refrain from doing so. You see, art is meant for great museums. Art is not meant to be touched, only admired from afar; art can only be viewed during work hours. Art spends every night alone.

If you must compare me to something, please consider comparing me to your favorite blanket. The one you've had all your life, tattered from love. The one that makes you feel safe and warm and like nothing can hurt you.

Compare me to your favorite movie. The one that you've watched more times than you can count; the one that you know all the lines to, but you will continue to watch it over, and over again because the characters feel like family, and watching it feels like coming home.

Compare me to your childhood teddy bear; the one you've slept with every night. The one that fights off the monsters. Compare me to something that you love, something you could never let go of.

If you let me, I will be all those things. I will make it my mission to keep you safe, and warm, and never let anything hurt you. To be your family, to be your home. To fight off all the monsters. Even the ones inside you.

Please, do not compare me to art. Art is beautiful and perfect, and I am neither of those things.

 **Baby Steps**

He hurt me–a lot. But he also made me feel as though I was made of moonlight, and one of the most loved things in his life. On the bad days, I wrap myself in that familiar feeling of being loved by him–even if it was all a lie– he was just trying to teach my lungs how to breathe again. I'm still a work in progress. I hope that one day; I will be able to feel warm without his love; that I can make myself believe that I am made of moonlight.

 **Amnesia**

I've forgotten the color of your eyes, but I still hear your voice in the middle of the day. I've forgotten the countless movies you have recommended to me, but I still feel the way your hands have soothed my back. I haven't heard from you in months, but I still wonder what you're doing. I wonder if you laugh the same, or smell the same. I wonder if you ever think about me; I wonder if you ever knew about the way I forgot how to breathe when I saw you walking towards me or the way that my body ached to touch you.

 **Little Boy and Little Girl**

In an unimaginable plot twist, you're back in my life. Something I've dreamt about for the last eight years of my life. You're back, and guess what–nothing's different. I'm still sad, you're still distant, and the sky's still blue.

I spent seven years writing about this amazing reality in which you come back, and, magically, everything would be fixed. A reality where my lungs are no longer filled with water, I no longer want to unzip my veins, and I love waking up every morning. None of that really happened.

I want to believe it's because we're both different people now, we've changed, and we have grown up and it will take time to make everything feel like it used to. That we need to learn how to love each other again. Maybe that's why I have a talent in world-building, because I can make even the most impossible scenarios believable, that even I start to believe it.

I know that we're not kids anymore, you don't need me, and, in reality, I don't need you either. I didn't need you to survive, because I did it all on my own for eight years. It was me who kept me going; it was me who got me up every single day, and did what I had to do. It was me–it's always been me.

You were never my hero. It's always been me.

 **Never**

He could never love someone like me. He is lean limbs that tower over those who are not worthy of his light; I am ribs hidden beneath layers of regret. He is made of porcelain, strong, collected; I am nothing but shards glass, held up by strung up silver, buckling under the weight of my mistakes. He, the epitome of light and beauty, could never love someone like me.

 **Metaphor**

Your name sounds like a prayer, and your laugh sounds like hope. When I look into your eyes, I forget what the loneliness feels like. When you hug me, I feel as though nothing can hurt me. I like the way my name sounds falling from your lips, and I love your laugh just a little bit more than usual when I'm the cause of it. I could spend hours listening about all the thoughts that swirl in your mind; I want to know everything you have to say. When I am with you, the sun shines a little brighter, my chest feels lighter, and I can finally breathe easy. This was how I learn to start loving you.

Maybe if I compared you to vodka, I'd finally regret your name coming in contact with my tongue. If I compared you to fire, I'd finally stopped reaching for you in the middle of the night. If I compared you to weeds, I'd finally pluck you out of my life. If I stopped comparing you to everything beautiful in the world, I would finally stop romanticizing you, and all the pain you've ever caused me. Maybe, just maybe, I would finally learn how to stop loving you.

 **Alternate Universes**

I want to live in a reality where I haven't turned the men who broke me into my greatest masterpieces.

 **Happy Wishes**

I hope she makes you happy. I hope she makes all of your bad thoughts go away, and only bring you peace. I hope when you look into her eyes, you see yourself sixty years in the future–happy and in love. I hope that when she touches you, it only makes you feel safe and at home–like a childhood blanket. When you kiss her, I hope you taste her laughter. When she holds your hand, I hope she only guides you home, to your happily ever after.

 **Better**

If I was a better writer, I'd write about how I used your smile to sew my veins together; I'd write about how I tattooed your name on my ribs, so I could always be surrounded by you. If I was a better writer, I'd write about how every word sounds like your name, and how I've spent the last four years training my ears to stop listening. If I was a better writer, I would write about how I walked away from you; how I left every part of me touched by you on the corner of the street. But I am not a very good writer; my wrists are still bleeding, the street corner is empty, and I still go running every time you call my name.

 **Void**

I no longer feel the sunshine on my skin, only the jagged edges of the void you left in my chest.

 **Who Am I?**

I'm 17 years old,  
right handed,  
and I get really excited  
about taking classes with history in them.

I was born in February  
which I guess makes me a Pisces–  
I like to think that I know what  
that means, but, honestly,  
I have no idea.

Happiness is a language  
I'm still learning,  
and I'm scared  
I'll never be fluent;  
scared that the words will  
always get caught in my throat,  
and I will be forced to stutter  
my way through every sentence.

When people ask me why I write,  
I tell them, "It's who I am," because  
I am too scared to tell them that  
I have forgotten who I was before it.

You see, when I speak, my words  
fall clumsily from my lips,  
and I swear I can see them  
evaporate before my eyes.  
I write because, if I didn't,  
everything within me would  
weigh down on my chest  
until I couldn't breathe anymore.

Writing and breathing have become synonyms.

I'm running out of things to write.

 **Love Letter**

I've written thousands of love letters to the sun. On some days, his rays have speckled so lovely in my eyes and it has not been so harsh to strain them –I like to think that's his way of writing back.

 **Beautiful**

I became a writer because I thought, perhaps, I could rewrite my life in nonsensical and whimsical scenarios with my crush back in the fourth grade. If I were to take illustrious words, string them together, and wrap them in a nice and pretty bow, then maybe this burn in my chest would lessen. I thought if I were to create beautiful words, then I would, in turn, become beautiful.

It's been ten years. It has been so, so long. My chest still burns and my words are still more beautiful than I will ever be.

 **Grief**

My grief will cut off all my veins and let them bleed.

My grief will burn my hair and it will never grow back.

My grief will give life to unending pain and suffering.

My grief will stop at nothing.

 **Accident**

At times I feel like a human traffic accident and everyone is slowing down to see the wreckage.

I am a human traffic accident and the person who I thought will fix it, was the one who caused it.

 **First Time**

People have always told me that my love for him was consuming, it took much of my time, my thoughts, my words, my breath, and even my heart. It made me, forget the moment. It made me, different. He made me do things I thought I would never do, he took parts of me, that I fear he still has even today.

People have always told me that my love for him was too loud. It clattered against the hallways, the white walls of the clinic, it vibrates through lockers and stairs, and it was hushed between passing lips and at times, disdainful stares. It was noisy, it was distracting.

People have always told me my love for him was wrong. As if our two lives were separated by a lifetime's worth. That his eyes are wiser, kinder, harsher, and mine were just brown. That it would be looked down upon, tattered clean to our achievements, ripped apart at the threads.

Someone told me, that my love for him; his name falls like a silken grace on my fingers, I saw parts of him, because he let me in. The feel of his stubble or the peaks of his graying hair. The way I utter a great thank you to the sun that has made a way for me to have met him.

It was the first time someone told me my love for him was genuine.

 **Passionate**

If it's not passionate then I would not have it.

If it does not make me ache at night, frantically mumbling out songs in its wake, or if it does not make me memorize the slopes of its beauty, or make me recall even the tiniest granular detail then I would not have it.

If it does not make me try to walk to the end of the railways, if it does not make me try to break down every wall that I have put around myself, or if it does not make me try to be a kinder person, a happier person, then I would not have it.

If it is not you, then I would not have it.

 **Golden Calf**

He is made of cigarette burns and a bit of gold; he is a Golden Calf not yet hardened, still dripping molten metal, still pliable.

 **Terms of Endearment**

I called love _"a little boy",_ who sang sweet songs softly in September. Love is funny, a bit feminine and fleeting; my voice still carries out his soundless songs.

I termed love as _"my first",_ good morning messages that make my heart flutter, a pair of glasses that I still wear, the first time of a kiss, gently on a forehead. Love was waiting for my classes to end. The start of forever encapsulated by a boy who left texts bound to be lost to the world.

I dubbed love _"a golden boy",_ and he shines so bright that my eyes have been trained only to see Love's light; my heart is the only one that can see the dirt and the ashes.

I tried appointing love as _"tired"._ Love had the most exhausted eyes I have ever seen and the deepest of scars and unruly curls and a sculpted jaw. This Love was not love.

I then called love _"a reverent man",_ fingers on top of a staircase and deep eyes that match with his faint wrinkles. I made a mistake of only hearing him, of only listening to him, of only feeling for him that I did not take to realize, I was not the only one Love was hearing, not the only one Love was listening, and most certainly, not the only one Love was feeling for.

After years and then some, I think Love just wants to be called by its real name. I think Love just wants to be called "You".

 **Singing a New Song**

I _used_ to sing songs to the afternoon sun in your eyes, making lyrics _out of this love_ would be harsh and painful and yet I _thought_ it would be worth it, making melodies magically appear from your mouth when I speak about more and more, laughter and laughter. I really believed we will be this great symphony that will be blasted throughout the halls or be _whispered_ among people throughout these walls.

I have been aching to forget that old song, it took me so long; such a painstakingly disaster, when it was something only I can master. Days passed and I failed at singing that too. What came out of my lips, were just sobs that wreck my entire heart, screams that ripped the quiet afternoons when I thought finally, finally, I would have already been silent and resigned.

Something new has been entering my life; little steps on the floor and a little lilting of toes, a hearty laugh, fluffy hair and a lopsided grin. Cheesecakes and latte art. The way fingers sketch dragons and burning fires. The warmth of his arms and the scent of his downy clothes.

The lyrics out of his hands are soft and gentle, the melodies I am starting to make are lighter and they flow so easier. This symphony of the beginning he and I both have will start as a slow as a diminuendo, and I have hope that it will swell with such a great crescendo. I have been trying to sing a new song, it had taken so long, but finally, this is the place where I think, I feel like where I belong.

In a thousand lifetimes, I still do not deserve that boy, I look to think this life is our a thousand and one.

To my old song, thank you for the sun in your eyes, thank you for the laughter that we had shared, and thank you for all the times that we had. Now it's time for me to sing a new song.

 **Relapses**

Anxiety takes a hold of my heart every single night and every single day  
Because I have always grown up to worry about everything and anything  
Cries have been all there ever is in my mouth and I fear it's all it will ever hold  
Depression is a visitor that never really quite left and overworked its stay

Everyone has been telling me mixed signals and mixed words sometimes, my  
Feelings are never quite heard as well as I hear theirs.  
Great things are ahead of me, I know that, I know that.  
Healing will come soon  
I know that, I know that, It's  
Just that I'm afraid at times, I feel like I'm holding a  
Kite that is supposed to fly but all I ever do is just fix the strings.

Lost, at times I feel lost. At what to do and what to think  
My heart tells me to rest  
Nothing should ever break me  
Oceans will part for me  
Perfection is in my imperfections

Questions reside in my bones  
Ripped skin  
Scars still on my thighs  
Tears down my face  
Under the bed

Viewpoints are only temporary  
When I look at the blue sky  
X, is the way I should see all the wrong things and I should replace with good

Years later, when I am older, I will have the courage to smile prettily and  
Zeal with come back, in waves across beaches.

 **Bourgeoisie Boy**

Red looks great on you, the color of your lips, your favorite shirt, when you scream, and but not when it's on you because  
Endeavors push you to fight, you see the haunted and emaciated children, the way they beg and steal and die, the smell of gunpowder and the  
Vicious way you see how the people that sit on top turn blind eyes to the poor  
On the way to the top of the barricades, your heart swells for freedom; yours and the people the system throw mud and bullets at.  
Look down, look down. You scream that the president, his senators, young and old should look down,  
Until blood, blood is on you, on my love, red, the color of your lips, your favorite shirt…  
The sun will rise again because of you, because you have fought so long and hard, my love  
I didn't have the chance to even tell you, despite every sacrifice you have done.  
Old age would have looked well on you as well.  
Now you are gone, and I will fight in your stead

 **Forget**

I'm over you. But I can't get over the conversations at 4 p.m. while the world dripped away around us. I can't get over crying in your arms because you were the last person I had to hold on to. I can't get over the automatic twitch of my head hoping for a glance of your eyes. I can't get over Wednesdays. I can't get over the way you ripped through my facade of smiles and laughter and all was really buried beneath them, was just a scared little girl. I can't get over how you forgot me so quickly and so easily, and I wonder how many more students you'll forget before they decide to forget you first.

 **Scar**

Those deep and wise eyes

You have forgotten his name

Letters scramble across your head

You couldn't piece a thing 

Your mind –

It is full of troubling thoughts, right?

And your feelings

Sorrows, aches – they never faded 

It still hurts you, doesn't it?

The scar on your heart, you can feel it

Like a sharp knife

Cutting through your skin 

That part –

It wasn't so easy to forget

The pain –

It runs far, far deeper

You might try and ignore it

But it doesn't work that way

It is always pain – only pain

From him – it never got away

 **Never Enough**

It's not enough to only see him in photos and videos. Not when I know what it feels like to have his strong arms around me. What his lips feel like on mine. What his fingers feel inside me. Not when I already know the weight of his hips on my hips. Nothing but him will ever be enough.

 **A Thousand and One**

In a previous life, we kiss but the stars don't come down. In another, you plunge the world into floods for me but I drown in the process. Another and we're strangers on a busy street, brushing by close enough to send each other reeling off balance but not stopping. Somewhere there's a final space where your hand on my face is the punchy climax to an epic love story, where the way our mouths meet takes the breath right out of people's throats and then just like that, the breath of ours are gone as well. One universe has us right, of all the millions stacked on millions. I love to believe that finally, this is the right life. The world is full of wonders and a hundred years ago the moon was too much to dream of touching. Look how far we've come. Maybe in this lifetime, art and writing in coffee shops, are our little infinities.

 **Yes or Yes?**

There are so many reasons to not kiss him:

1\. I wasn't raised to love tender, I was raised to remain quiet and make the world my enemy.

2\. When he's around all I do is tremble. When he's around me, I want to get on my knees. He has so much power over me; I make myself smaller to accommodate his stature.

3\. He's too good at forgiving and I'm too good at making mistakes.

4\. I know what they say about monsters. I know what happens to the boys who love them. Am I going to do that to him?

5\. My hands don't know how to be gentle. I am a writer, I stitch and I wash and I cut. I think about the last beautiful thing that shattered in my palms. The fresh rose petals crumbling between my fingers like a bruise. I am a daughter of wolves, I wouldn't know how to hold magic and not destroy it.

6\. If I hurt him it might hurt me.

7\. If I kill him I might kill myself.

8\. I am terrible at rehabilitation. This is one of the many addictions I'd fail to give up. He's going to destroy me and all other kisses and all the other boys and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to forget his name.

9\. I'm still not sure if he isn't a dream.

10\. If I kiss him, I might wake up and find myself alone again.

There are reasons to kiss him though:

1\. Because he's beautiful.

2\. Because he asked.

3\. Because he said "Yes,"

 **Hubris**

Falling in love with a god is not a death sentence. Falling in love with their strength, virtues, the places they had dared to call sacred. The animals to be sacrificed at their altars, or the symbols of their life. Falling in love with a lyre, an olive branch, sea foam, preludes to wine, silver-tipped arrows, a golden apple, is not a death sentence.

The story is only a tragedy if the god loves you back. If he sees the stories you write as the only testament to his faith, if she says the loveliest thing in the world is your smile, if they tell their most sacred people to give offerings in your name. If they tell their people that yes, you are not supposed to be scared that you are glorified by someone who is meant to be venerated themselves.

 **Gaps**

"Your generation would probably 'live tweet' the end of the world," you say, and you laugh

You mean it as a joke, and I understand,

Or it is because you don't because the word lies awkwardly on your tongue, stumbles as it leaves your lips, air quotes visible, you lived through your years in solitude and paper, and although you try to keep up with the years, sometimes you still like clickbait.

You meant it as an insult, so you don't understand, when I look into your eyes and say "Yes"

Because we would.

It would be our work as the people on this Earth to photograph its end the best way we know, through the tweets, the Facebook lives, haphazardly taken pictures in name of aesthetic and if that means a second by second update of the world going up in flames, or down in rain, or crushed under the feet of invading monsters.

So be it.

It would mean a second by second update of

"I love you"

"I'm scared"

"Are you all right?"

"Stay close"

"Be brave"

It would mean a second by second update of humanity's connection with one another,

Proof of empathy, love, and friendship between people who may have never met in the flesh.

So don't throw the word 'Live tweet' at me like a dagger, meant to tear at my 'teenage superiority', that I have the naivety in my eyes that you have lost, remember our souls are one in the same,

Because if the citizens of Pompeii, the wretched soldiers of Troy, the people hiding in trenches, before they were consumed by fire, drafted to war, and lived to poverty had a chance to tell their friends and family throughout their life.

"I love you"

"I'm scared"

"Don't forget me"

You would agree that they would have taken the chance.

 **On The Eight Day**

What if, in another universe, I do deserve you?

For instance:

In this universe, I am your student, but maybe in another, I am not and we meet, and we are the same age. Maybe there's a universe where you hold my hand and tell me you love me despite the stares, despite whatever people throw at us, a universe that this love that has stretched to the end of the earth, does not crash and just continues stretching further and farther.

Maybe there's a universe where I am allowed to take pictures of your smiling face, you take me out to café shops or we drive across towns and our playlist is the combination of me singings show tunes, letting down the window, belting out pop music and be so in character, and you would laugh, showing the crow's feet of your eyes, and you would gently sing worship songs and your voice like an angel of music. We would binge watch Tudors and point out all the historical inaccuracies.

Maybe there's a universe where that's not the life I want. Where I do not fall in love and we ride this year smoothly, no more, no less, no mixed signals. Just another normal year.

Maybe there's a universe where we are both happy. (or at least less sad). Where I adore every nice thing you did for me without starting to give it a lot of meaning. A universe where we actually end up with the things that make us happy. Pursuing music, pursuing writing, pursuing more than education. Where we explode at times instead of being dormant volcanoes. Where both of us can let down our baggage and curiosity and issues. A universe where we're happy — without wondering if that happiness is some messed-up Jenga game ready to topple at the slightest shout from my mother or at the coldness of your voice. A universe where we're comfortable and sure and we have kittens.

Maybe there's a universe where we fall asleep next to each other every night — my face buried in your neck, hugging your warmth, you tend to the scars on my bodies and I tend to the wounds on your mind — and we both don't want anything or anybody else. Where we don't want more, we just want each other.

And maybe, just maybe, there is a universe where I did not meet you. Just someone I see in the corridors and I do a polite greeting, a universe where I do not make you poems, stories and proses, where there is no ache when I am in front of the faculty, and maybe in that universe, I do not hear your name from classes far away. In that universe you do not go; I did not ruin you nor did you ruin me.

In that universe, the eight day does exist. It happened and that day came.

If you think of it all this way, then it's like neither of us did anything wrong.

If this theory holds, well, by the law of averages, there had to be one universe — just this one — where we don't end up together. Here and now just happens to be it. If you think of it this way, nothing is our fault.

You just found me in the wrong universe. That's all. You just found me in this universe, that's all.

There are so many more universes. The ones where I believe in love and where I don't hate myself and where I never feel the need to kamikaze relationships. The ones where you do not scream in silence, you married earlier, you didn't become a bad person, you have never walked to a place lost just to find yourself. A universe where we can have nice things. It's helpful, right?

Because in another universe you would have loved me first, and in another universe I would have loved you last.

 **Evolution**

I'm tired of the way love turns us into animals.

My dried mouth gave up on roaring. I'm sick of you tearing my flesh with your teeth, stalking me like prey in the shower, lunging and growling and getting in and catching me in your arms; I'm exhausted of pawing, and panting, and hunting and wagging. Of course at first, it was thrilling. That we have no words for this. That we are just our bodies. Primal and Simple.

But look at our cortex. Look at our thumbs. Look at our intelligence; our speech

My love, whether we like it or not, we are human.

 **You are what you love**

You are a kind hearted person.

You are a writer as well.

You are a preacher of verses and eloquence.

You are golden.

But also –

You are selfish.

You are a tyrant bent on destruction.

You are cold.

You are ashes.

 **Empire II**

My love for you is the only empire I will have ever built.

When it falls, as all empires do, my professional career in empire building will be over. 

I will retreat to a house along the shores.

I will dabble in the art of cross-stitching and embroidery.

I will borrow books, and continue writing. 

I will fold the clean clothes.

I will wash the dishes.

I will never dream of having the whole world ever again.

 **Karina Angela**

I must remind myself—

They can't tell that I didn't write this bit immediately after that a plethora of others.

The six months where I ignored the manuscript are not visible to the readers I have accumulated throughout these years.

The bit where I put my head in my hands and muttered "Why am I writing this?" takes place in the single space between the period and the next capital letter. Between early mornings and sundown

As soon as I shove that character in, she has always been there and someone will probably say that she's the emotional center

And the book couldn't have been written without her, and nobody will know that I thought of her last, because I am afraid that she will be too much like me, that she was my dream, being in love with a young man who was rich, smart and ready to defy the stars and all that.

She was almost the antagonist

And for about ten minutes she was the science major

And now she has been there since you started reading.

I am sanding down the places where my editor found splinters kicking up a fine dust of adjectives and dropped phrases and eventually it will all be polished to a high shine and hopefully when someone looks into it they'll see their own face reflected back instead of mine.

 **Pink Ribbon in Blue Cradles**

I tell him: here is where the spoon and fork go, where his cologne smells good, what to wear to this; how to tie a tie, what to say in response to a gift, here is how to turn down food twice before accepting the third time, here is how to be nice to someone who is never nice to you, here is how you clear a table, here is how you clear someone else's table, here is how you thank someone for dinner, for wine, for being there, here is how to state your opinion in a quiet and differential way so they will be more accepting, here is how to ask someone to do something and not be considered bossy, here is how to say "no" and not sound angry.

I tell him: watch her bag, "love, you're in the way"; go open the door for that woman, she's carrying her baby; there's a child behind you, don't step back; you just cut in front of them, at least send them an apologetic look; please tell that man to shut up, I am too small to punch him and I might if he keeps talking; please tell that man to stop offering her drinks, she doesn't want any and he's not listening; please tell your friends I am uncomfortable when they say my legs look pretty.

he asks me how I keep everything straight, he says, "you're always so polite, always looking out for everybody," he asks me how I know how to run a house and a business and a party, how I know all of these small lessons in etiquette as if they were ingrained in me, how I fold my hands on my lap, how I weigh every situation I walk into in a fraction of an instant, how I always seem to know what to do

and I love him dearly but I would love to live in a world where I would not have to know these things, I would love to be like him and walk with my spine straight at a train station, sit with my legs wide, I would love to leave messes wherever I went and expect that someone will clean them, to never worry that I'm drinking or eating or laughing or talking too much, I would love to be able to calm down at a bar and just talk instead of worrying that the girl next to me is too drunk to walk and the person talking to her isn't letting her go home, I would love to be blind to the things that I know, I would love to be rude and loud and to take up the space that the mountain range in me wants to expand to

But I tell him: here is how I survive. It is all I know how to do.

 **Promises**

I do not write you poems because I loved you the most. There are other souls for me to call after, to miss, to immortalize. But when I am most proud of my words yours is the opinion I want and cannot have.

I had been saving my books until they were right. I had been saving my poems until I believed them, waiting for the right time for the world to see that my dreams can be their dreams, that they can use my fantasies to drown their realities.

I could not handle putting shoddy work in your hands. I could not handle your disappointment, your polite interest. But this silence is worse. I would have rather you read them. I would rather you hate them.

"Send them to me on Schoology, I won't publish them, it's a way for me to remember you." 

I forgot to send them to you, is that the reason why you forgot me?

 **Magnitude**

I am not asking for him to be clean. I know there is too much blood on his hands to ever be wiped clean as he was when he was ten years old and the only blood he knew came from scraped knees and swollen knuckles. I am not asking for him to be free. I know that his hands are tied to his weapons now. I find blades under his skin, and mines buried in his heart, and bullets clenched between his teeth. I have spent hours picking out gunpowder residue from under his fingernails and between the lines of his palms. I know that his feet will always drag under the weight of a world he only thought to save. I am not asking for a miracle. I am not asking for the sun and the stars to move for him. I am not asking for a do-over, a fresh start, a time machine. I am not asking for absolution, even though I say he has done nothing wrong. I am not even asking for happiness, even though he damn well deserves it. All I am asking is a little peace so that he may sleep without his fists clenched battle-ready at his sides and ice dripping from his bones.

 **Celestial Bodies**

You are not my sun; the sun is supposed to be warm and active, the sun is always meant to stay.

You were my daylight shooting star; beautiful and spontaneous; a shooting star was always meant to leave.

 **Grow**

Your love helped me grow

 **I See it.**

I'm a little different now, because of you.

Maybe it's not noticeable to other people, but I now see it.

I see it when I turn off my favorite song because it reminds me too much of you.

I see it in pictures, in the insincerity of my smile.

I see it when I meet someone new and can only think of the ways they will hurt me or they will leave me or they will let me cry so much at night.

I see it when I look in the mirror and wonder why I just wasn't good enough.

I should've listened to my mother when she said I was just a child and you were a grown man who flourished in his agency.

I should've listened to all of my friends when they all said you were soon to be taking vows of matrimony.

You gave me a pair of rose-colored glasses and showed me how it felt to be loved.

You shielded me from your harsh intentions and led me to believe in you, in us.

But when the glasses came off, you were gone, and the only thing left of me was regret.

So much regret.

Because you are a groomer.

And finally after all this time.

I see it.

 **Fireworks**

The fireworks that you have set in my heart are still going, they have been leaving ashes ever since.

 **Blackness**

He's too deep in the dark that he became darkness himself, you cannot break him out, and he's too consumed by it. And remember, you can always shine a light onto a black object, but it'll remain black, that is its nature.

 **Doors**

He has opened up a door and I can't close it.

Months have passed and I have closed the door but his face and laughter keeps knocking and knocking until my hands tremble to unlatch its hooks

 **Return to Carthage**

Dear heart, I'm begging you. Please let him go. He'll never care for you the way you care for him. He doesn't think about you. And I can't keep living like this. Thinking about him all the time sends longing and hope. Please. Let him go. There's so much I need to do in life. And I can't do any of it if I keep on drowning in this ocean of misery every single day. So please for my sake, let him go.

 **A Nonnet in Forgetting**

I cannot remember anymore

The warmth of your arms is long gone

Even your smile is distant

Your words were tender lies;

I have forgotten

The love, the pain

That made me.

What were –

We?

 **Forgiveness**

He once told me "I'm human and God knows that" I am certain that is true. Nights of talking against his father, the hardness that wraps his voice, the many times he had questioned the most Holy, Himself. I am so sure, there are times his kind eyes dilated to anger, contempt; where his hands have destroyed and left everything into dust. "I will always be forgiven, and you will be too,"

I am certain that it may be true as well. Nights where I thought of ending it all, I yell hurtful words at my mother, times when I ever really was lies. I am so sure the kindness I own are tossed aside in favor of hate, where my hands do not make people alive, they kill them instead.

"I shouldn't have to apologize for being human," I replied "And neither should you,"

 **In the Dark**

The possibility of an almost haunts me but the certainty that there never really was scares me more. –

 **Exceptional**

Somebody once told me that I am an exceptional person and (I laughed so childishly my chest hurt) I think I didn't see the pain in his eyes because I was so busy demeaning myself.

He tells them about my keen memory, how he is taken aback on how I could recall past events and memories so vividly as if I'm repainting a picture and my words were the color; He talks about my perception, the crisp of my voice when I reason in his lectures, noticing quickly the things others cannot pick up about easily.

He is prideful that I am talented, that he likes the sound of my lilting voice during our short walks in our early mornings, which he revels in my intellect because I was so astute for my age. He loves my passion on the stage. He memorizes the fluid movements of my hands when I write or when I letter; that he rereads my works twice: once, to see myself; twice, to see himself.

Somebody once told me I am an exceptional person, without him, I wonder if I really was.

 **Dear Lady of La Naval,**

I wonder has he ever collapse at your altar as I have. If he had looked so tired and weary, to the point where his forehead had creased? If after a week of shouting, frustration, of his problems and his misgivings; does he kneel, pray and cry?

I wonder, has he been enthralled at the stained glass as I have. If he had looked at the delicate art and wondered at the history and love put into it. If he had stood in awe of the entrance of your grand doors and held his breath at the sight of your golden facades.

I wonder, has he looked forward to meeting you every day and has he been renewed with such hope that he smiled for the future. If he knows he can walk here in your garden and he feels found after being lost for so long.

I wonder if you had fallen in love with his haunting,enchanting,wonderful voice when he spoke about you with such reverence only he can utter towards large crowds. If you blush at the way he laughs so endearingly his smile lines and crooked teeth never fade; if you had also thought that this man, who had cherished your truths and ideals, defended you in heartbreaking situations, made you want to sing about love, always, always, always now until the end, was forever?

I wonder, if you have ever cried yourself to sleep when he left with no warning? Thinking, thinking, thinking, if you, if you, if you were enough? I wonder if you desperately wait for his return, even for just a little while, even for an hour, even for just a minute, Just to see his face, his smile and his laugh.

Dear Lady of La Naval, I wonder if you ever see him in me, just as much as I see him in you.

 **Colors**

We are not black and white. There are so many shades of grey in between what we were and are and will be. Tell me that there was something there, please, because I can't be the only one who loses my breath after every single conversation or after every single smile or after every touch.

 **Dreams**

I want to love you somewhere past the sun where it won't matter where you left your promises. I want to love you so hard that it echoes backward and undoes everything that has hurt you. I will sing you to sleep even when my voice cracks with the weight of your past and I will stay with you, always, no matter what.

 **Five things I should have told him and the one thing I did.**

I was supposed to tell him that these past months were probably just a test run; probably to test distance, to test patience, to test endurance. That he didn't really leave me alone, standing still. That he didn't make me wait; that every morning he is still walking by. 

I was supposed to tell him I loathed his name. I hated the way his words turned my heart into hope and the next day it was shattered; hated the way that I was all of seventeen and he was not. His touch, his smile and his mind makes my blood boil and bleed backward. 

I was supposed to tell him I would have given the world, lay down my poetry, eradicate my mind, bargained and bartered, begged him to come back for just a day, just an hour, just a minute, I think every saint and martyr took pity on me that day and gave me seconds. 

I was supposed to tell him, that the moment I met his silence, the emptiness and the void. There were only tears and screams that left my mouth. Only the way my eyes looked so hollow and so broken, only my trembling and shaking fingers when I hear his name, only this pain. 

I was supposed to tell him that it's okay. Comfort him in the way only I know, by telling him everything we had shared, cried over, discoursed against with remains deeply in the marrow of my bones; that five months in seventeen or be it thirty-five years could not compare to twelve maybe twenty-four, maybe could not compare to a matrimony

vi. "hello"

 **Rotation**

Is that what you think? That I think that highly of myself? My dear, there are nights that I cry myself to sleep because I don't even believe that I should be in this world.

The last thing I want is attention.

I will have panic attacks because of my panic attacks that attract people's attention. I am so terrified of a person's disapproval. That I will hurt myself making them happy

I think that the earth revolves around anyone but me

I have always believed that I am only a supporting character in this book called Life

But do I say this all out loud?

No

Of course not.

Because you know how to fight

With violence and contempt

I know how to fight with silence

My only outlet is my pen that I

Wield as my sword

The ink pouring out

As my blood

 **Soul, Mind, Heart**

What you did not realize is that if souls were water, mine was ice and it was ready to freeze you to death.

What you did not realize was that if my mind was words it would be an endless poem comprised of a universe, a black hole you would no doubt lose yourself in.

What you did not realize is that if hearts were structures mine would be a hotel; exciting and fun to explore, nice to visit, but no one wants to live there.

 **Cold**

And you know what the worst thing of all was? I felt so cold; I was shivering in the halls, hugging myself for warmth. I felt cold even though you left me in the summer

 **How to love a Protomartyr**

1\. Foolishly.

He does not really care, whether you are exceptional or not. You are nothing but amusement in a world of the mundane familiar. Savor that.

2\. Unabashedly.

He is beyond your comprehension, and the study of him is your rapture. There is nothing here that you could ever understand. You cannot understand the way he walks straight or whenever he writes he connects his letter "t" with the next. You do not look away. You do not want to look away.

3\. Breathlessly.

When did you first feel it? When did the all-encompassing pressure begin to grow? Does it matter? You cannot breathe. It's too much. You want more.

4\. Desperately.

You are lost and losing more the longer you wander here, in this garden of wrong turns and impossible riddles. Inside he calls to you and promises safe passage in payment for faith.

5\. Helplessly.

Of course, you love him. You always have. He found you and made you his, isn't it such a gift?

6\. Recklessly.

You will burn yourself out in a blaze of glory in hopes that a universe will notice, but the thrill of the burn is worth it in its own right.

7\. Blindly.

You know nothing of him because you have never really confronted it. Whatever you had with him, lurks behind you always, never seen but always noticed. Whisper your prayers to the shadows, maybe one day, he will listen.

8\. Ceaselessly.

It is just out of reach, constantly flitting in and out of existence, close enough to taunt, far enough to evade your grasping claws. You'll catch him one day. He has already caught you.

9\. Thunderously.

Fight. Tear. Rend. Bleed. Blood is the oldest call to the gods and he will listen. If you spill enough that is.

10\. Inevitably.

It was always going to lead you here, to the point where nothing has ever mattered but who you are and the fact that you will never change again. He does not care for you, so there is no judgement here.

11\. Harmoniously.

You cannot coexist with him for they are more than can ever be explained but you can become more-than-you if you try, a fragile counterpoint to their divine song.

12\. Freely.

This was chosen for you, by you, by chance but the reward is an endless being, live without the boundaries of 'too much and what if's'.

13\. Collectively.

You are but a collection of parts, but every piece of yourself calls out in rapture of his use in service to the perfect whole you can become.

14\. Exclusively.

No one loves him as you do, you alone know the truth to what happened, you alone know how to fill the vacuum of nothing that cradles you. You will never fill it.

15\. Foolishly.

This cannot continue. There is nothing there to love anymore.

 **Absence**

I was forced to survive in your absence.

I am alarmed that nobody will smell the way you did in the morning.

I am worried they will hate how I constantly need to go out of the room when it gets too cold, or because I feel the start of a panic attack coming.

I am scared that nobody will kiss me like they care because nobody will care like you.

I am terrified nobody will read my works and reading them backwards, bottom to up and say I am amazing.

I am anxious they will not buy me milk, because they have noticed I can never go a day without it.

I am fearful that I will not love anyone the way I loved just by your smile, alone.

I am frightened of what my life has been looking like without you, and I am afraid no one will take my ideas seriously and help me try to envision them out.

I have been afraid to not find love again, right before I found you.

At night I recall all of them who left. I try to remember the fall out, the relapses, the unheard pleas of staying. The aftermath of burnt trees and collapsing citadels.

But this feels different… this feels worse. You leaving was the biggest nail in the coffin, so far.

I am afraid of the morning sun since you haven't been walking next to me, even if you always hear me humming songs, that aren't just for your tastes.

I am terrified of the way I look makeup and in golden earrings because you aren't there to tell me how beautiful I am.

I am anxious of writing because I know I'll want to show you every word I have written.

I am scared of my reflection because I don't see you when I look at myself anymore.

I am afraid of lots of things without you, but most of all I am afraid no one will love me after you. That no one will even come close. And that even if they did… I still wouldn't be enough.

Just like I wasn't for you.

❛ the world gives you so much pain, and here you are making gold out of it. ❜

when i'm angry, I don't yell i burn.

the pain did not make me a better person

 **Envy**

I envy the winds who still witness and caress you. They taunt me of a future, where one can be two.

 **Affirmation**

When you plunged the knife into me you also began bleeding. You ripped my heart out of my chest and it got stuck on your engagement ring on the way out.

You left me vulnerable, cold, angry and terribly sad. All the things you said I would have never experienced.

Your wife smells like rain and looks like fire and those are your two favorite things and she sat down right at the center of your heart. She knew your smile lines longer, kissed your hands more tenderly than I have. She must have been more capable to heal your scars. She must have soothed your demons long before I came into the picture. She must have been waiting for you to go home early as well. She must have worried over you not sleeping right at night. She must have loved your smile, your face and your laugh as much as I have.

But…you know how much I love you, you knew how much I loved you. Right?

It has to be why you left? Right? Because you know how much I love you and that kills you, right?

It has to kill you. It has to rip your heart out too. It has to.

" i think even my body knew you would not stay.

i notice everything i do not have

you are waiting for someone who is not coming back. "

 **Funeral**

My death will be grand. I will see to it. My highest ambition is to crawl out from the ashes and laugh at the things they thought could bury me, I will write all of the stories I have never told and turn people who destroyed every part of me into stone.

 **Truth**

There is God in you.  
Even if you laugh at me, I think it is true.

 **Warmth**

When I was five, I burned my hand on the stove, my mother always warned me to never touch things like that scalding kettle but at such a young age, my soul seeks warmth.

When I was seventeen, I burned my hand on the palm of his hands, my mother always warned me to never touch things like a man who had a name, a reputation, but at such a young age, my soul still seeks warmth.

 **Gifts  
** **  
** **  
**"If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared. All the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around my young neck. Let the goddess of love ruin your life, because I cannot wear baby's breath anymore"

i want to sleep with you

I believe we will be reborn, because I believe everything, and I believe that we will meet again and suffer together again.

 **Blessing**

Maybe never getting to say goodbye is the closest I am allowed to get to a blessing. Maybe never hearing your final words to me was a good thing because I would have never had the courage to say hello to another boy who might someday hold my heart again.

 **Gone Girl**

That precocious little girl inside me is gone. I don't know how to tell you I don't know where she is, nor do I have the heart to.

 **Cautionary Tale**

They will speak of my name, yes, in mockery, scorn, and contempt. They will tell the tale of a poor young girl foolish enough to think he had loved her as well; that same young girl is a bitch, has an attitude, snobbish and rude.

They leave out the parts where I choose to fashion out flower crowns of smiles and hugs, the part where he told me lies, the part where that poor young girl doesn't dare to try and rip other people apart just like what they've done to her.

If I were to be honest, I am not the cautionary tale to be spoken out to children. You are.

we have to create. it's the only thing louder than destruction.

 **Grenade**

A doctor once told me I love too much. When the people I know, tell me I love too much, I take it as a compliment.

Because I am self-aware enough to know that I have yet to love someone without giving too much of myself, without losing myself in the storm.

Because I am not the kind of girl who loves half-heartedly, who keeps one foot in the direction of safety, I am not the girl who loves simply.

I have not forgotten how to love gracefully. When I love, those men, have the privilege to live forever.

I love like a massive earthquake, like cracks in the foundation - shattering the asphalt and leaving myself in naked ruins. Taking time and patience, to rebuild.

And yet, I have no interest in loving safely, in loving in pieces - putting it all back into tidy little boxes and pretending it doesn't have the power to consume me. I do not want to pretend that it does not have the power to destroy.

I spent years dreaming of control, of safety, so obsessed with the promise of keeping my heart in order that I nearly threw it all away.

So when my heart races at the sight of his smile, I listen. Because I remember trying so hard to force myself to be okay and the way my heart would beat so slowly that waking up felt like a victory. And I realize I have never been in control. Not of this hand grenade heart I own.

So I've let myself make a home in my own body, let this heartbeat call the shots.

Because I am lucky that it still can.

Because…. I trust that it knows how to put the pieces back together when it's over.

So when you tell me that I just love too much, I will nod.

But I will never again put the pin back in it in just to pretend I have control.

 **Swan Song**

Perhaps you will be my swan song  
taking with you the things I thought I had belong

 **Point of No Return**

What do you do when you can feel him? You feel him entirely. Where he is, where he has been and where he will be? What do you do when your eyes flutter at the sound of his voice? A hymn to the north, the determination and the coldness; his touch, ricochets through the marrow your bones and everything you thought you knew that was right and wrong is clouded by lust and passion. What do you do? You wait. The flowers in my common room keep dying, because damn it, I have been waiting for so long.

 **Aftertaste**

The aftertaste of a goodbye is the worst to get rid of. It is bitter, forced and you find yourself vomiting the excess pain. You try so hard to eat sweet lies to soothe your tongue.

 **Bruised**

Your hands stay firm at your side, and if I look closely, they tremble at times. They clench and unclench, they are rough and calloused. When I look at them, I just see a man trying to restraining himself, from hitting something or someone. Your eyes, do not shine in the light, they may hold wisdom, understanding, they may also hold chuckles and hope. When I look at them, I just see a man with cold and calculating eyes, trying to hide so many secrets and mysteries that he doesn't want to say out loud.

I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise.

 **Contradictions**

He told me that the most painful thing in the world is to forget. I digress. I think the most painful thing in the world is to remember.

 **Departures**

the day

you told me it was over

my heart felt like it was weighing too much to tip a scale.

a lot of people say their own hearts break.

not mine, I suppose

it felt even bigger, heavier, full of all of promises, lessons, plans, laughter, quiet afternoons with each other.

all of the time never spent together.

 **Musings in Cold Sheets**

There are mornings that I wake up and I am completely consumed by the thought of you. It's been months but I swear I can still see your smile. I bought new sheets the day I told you I missed you and you didn't reply. I laid in bed watching movies of people losing love as quickly as they found it and I cried until my nose was so stuffed up I couldn't see your smile anymore.

Anyway my point is that when these mornings come I lay in bed and feel as sorry for myself as I possibly can. Because maybe I could have done better, maybe I could have fought less and taken more time to be good and whole without you, but regardless of all the things that add up over time, I loved you. I loved you like I would want someone to love myself. I loved you so entirely, so strongly that love wasn't even a word anymore, and it was just you. And the day you left, the day I learned I couldn't get to say goodbye, I screamed so hard into my pillow I felt the world move. So I lay in my bed and I feel sorry for myself because our love is something you find once. One time in one life with one heart and you are you. And I am me. And I may not ever feel us again. But I loved you. And I may have not been the best, but we… we were.

 **Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf**

My childhood was ending, I was on the top of the world. With my little red dress with little etchings, saying out loud all my beloved words. I walked a path I shouldn't have. I took a break after, I was tired and a little cold. But it was because I saw skin of alabaster, it was the wolf and my heart was sold. 

He was sitting with his back straight against the chairs, the musk of his cologne permeating the air, clipped voice, three piece set and a charming smile. A picture perfect predator. My heart skipped a beat! What wise eyes he had! What teeth! What hands! I was so sure he spotted me and the red ribbons in my hair. I was all of sixteen. He patted the chair next to him. Why? Poetry and the Stars. 

The wolf led me to his lair, far away from the stage, the paper and the path my mother told me to take care. It was deep into the woods, and I crawled through the masked intentions and mixed signals that I never truly understood, wandering claws and full of thorns, he was holding my hand all throughout but my ribbons were torn...I lost parts of my hair as well but we finally got there. 

He whispered sweet nothings in my ear. Dreams of fireworks, white doves, French films and history. He tugged on my ripped ribbons and put in new ones. I clung till daybreak, on his greying fur, for what little girl like me didn't love her wolf? He combed through my hair and then he kisses my pale face, and kissed down further and farther and I slid between his matted paws. What would mother say to me now…? 

When I woke up, I found words, words alive on his sleeping form, and then I saw his own stage, his own papers and his own path. It lead me to a little door, sunlight peaked through, it was warm, safe, beating and alive. I looked back on the sleeping wolf, kissed his forehead and wiped the blood at edge of his mouth and left. 

I was young again – and it took months for me to differentiate that mushrooms were not the same broken promises that the birds were screaming for help and the ribbons he had put in my hair were chains. That the wolf that I had come to love and cherished howls the same old song at the moon, the same pale face, the same little girl, year in and year out, the same rhyme, the same time and the same reason. 

There was an axe glinting at the acacia tree, and I felt how it wept, I took the axe to a rabbit and watched how it leapt. I went back to the greying wolf as he slept. When I raise the axe, shrugging off the self-blame, I felt him stir and call out my name. My hand falters and I felt the cold, I should have never came. Such a pitiful girl, little red! You still feel the same. 

I ran. I ran and ran, I went through the path I was supposed to be. Never minding the howling of the wolf that never got angry and hunted for me. I went out of the woods at seventeen but I felt like I have grown. I walk out of this forest, with my little red dress, singing, all alone.

 **Honesty**

After months of aching, of only feeling your sunlight, of only drowning in your words and laughter, after nights of crying myself to a mute shudder, of holding myself on the bathroom floor because I don't want my brothers and my own father touch my shoulder; waiting and yearning for some kind of response. Dragging myself into the future, telling myself that someday, somehow you will return. I know that it has hurt me a lot. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't breathe. I was consumed by the love I thought I had received. I drank it all up and I become intoxicated as it seeped down to my bones that I didn't realize I was corroding myself. I convinced my little heart that the world was black and white, but we were the only ones screaming color only to find out I was color blind.

Despite admitting to myself that I scream out at night or that I find my feet in front of the edge of those stairs, despite admitting to myself that I was wrong, that this was wrong, I haven't been honest with myself.

I blamed you. I hated you. I wanted you to also ache, also drown, and also wait for a reply only for me to be gone the next days, the next weeks, and the next months. I wanted you to wake up in cold blood, ruing the day we met, and how this could have been avoided. I wanted you to think of the color of my lip tint when your wife puts her lipstick on. I wanted you to hurt the way I hurt; to feel the hurt, the humiliation, of you trying so hard not to think of my wit whenever someone answers you with the same boldness I had become known for, maybe remember my passion in scattered pieces of poetry that you stumble upon.

There are still days when I felt like I could have done better, scrubbed my skin a little rougher as a method of removing your firm touches. I could have said no and left. Maybe I could have been disgusted when you said I was so mature for my age and maybe, just maybe, I could have stopped it all before the fear, the pain and the tears.

Maybe, just maybe, I could have left you in the same way you left me.

In an effort to be more honest with myself. I am looking forward to the days where your memory does not haunt me and I look up to the sun and not think of your smile and your jokes, I'm sure that there will come a time that I will not jump and hide from someone who looks like you. I know there will come a time where you will be just a memory to laugh at, a cautionary tale I will tell my children and from then on I will repair the floodgates of my heart that you once climbed over. I know that there will be a day with no more drowning, crying and waiting.

But for now, I will have to be honest with myself.

It still hurts.

I still remember.

I still drown.

I still cry,

I still wait.

And honestly, that is still completely fine.

 **Little Red Riding Hood and the Fairy Queen**

I lied a little bit, I didn't ran out of the maimed path right away, didn't find my way out the forest immediately. How could I? I could still admire the flowers on the road, filled with baby's breath, dill and carnations. When I close my eyes, his wonderful laughter and the feel of his rough hands still linger, it's as if I didn't leave his lair, and I wonder, if he still has hunger, would he have killed me if I stayed longer? 

My feet stumbled through landscapes of greenery, and my fingers found the little soft feathers of the birds above me, this was an enchanted forest, I see! All that deceit, the pain and the hatred, all that I couldn't see. It was probably why I trusted the wolf and held him dear, maybe the reason why I shouldn't have any fear. This was an enchanted forest, I see! Full of anger, red flags, and bloody trickery. 

The strain of enchantment reached so far, to slopes of every leaf and his greying fur, to his cold eyes and woods of cinnabar. It made me so hard to know what was right or wrong, made me forget every single song. It made me feel like I didn't belong, because a little girl like me should have known when the line was drawn. 

I was exhausted. I wanted to block out every sound of the animals that listened to his howls, ignore the fresh fruit that tasted sweet and always fed the never sleeping owls. I wanted to go, and go, and go and go and go and go, but I couldn't leave. I don't know why. Has it been because I thought that damned wolf cries for the little girl he has made calm or is it because the little girl cries so hard for him to return her in his arms? 

Nearing eighteen, with my hair grown, it felt like the heavens have answered my prayers and have her shown. There was a woman, of delicate tumbling hair, kind eyes and wit, eerily similar to the words that I founded on his sleeping form, all those months before. The loud winds rustle and made me shiver. Was she angry? Did she know? Did she also cry? Did she also had her heart ripped out? Did he break her promises too? 

The fairy queen has had her wings ripped out, torn from the middle, and the ground was filled with shimmer and glitter, and blood, my mouth trembles, and my fingers shake, the wolf I had come to know was calm, serene, fatherly, he couldn't have! He couldn't have! But…but the woman of fire and rain, had marks and nips at her beautiful form, tear streaks down her chiseled face. The horrors she had endured hidden in plain sight cannot be ignored. Her gentle eyes that spoke languages of astronomy, plants and the left good things of this world, assured me. Yes he did…Yes he did… 

The enchantment of the woods were gone. There were vows, ties, standards, engagements broken, dead and buried, left to rot in those ruined sheets. The wolf was a flame, a fire, she remarked. A twin flame, a candle that guides, protects nurtures but he was also a roaring fire, building, building up masks, destroying, deceiving, devouring people whole. I haven't had the heart to tell this to the fairy queen, who shines so bright, but could it be possible that somehow, just somehow, she and I are somewhat the same. 

The way out of the forest is near, she says gently, but the biting venom was hidden beneath the golden dust. Both wings and red ribbons that were torn apart violently, dangling together, ending this story of greed and lust.


	4. Chapter 4

**Parallel lines (for the act that has ruled my heart for three years)  
**  
author's notes: I did try my best to write about pre-marital sex but it's been months since I ever did engage in such actions so my feelings, writing and senses towards this topic is a bit dulled. There are three versions of this story, the actual one where I just write freely about the topic and the alternate one is more planned in my head where Sho is asexual, some of the lines I reused in both stories because the English is too much for me, I'm facing the music that I cannot write that well in a male p.o.v but I am trying. Also in the first story they do have an age gap while in the second they don't. The third part is where you have your usual the girl is prude about sex. I basically made this story into every ending and opening I can think of.

According to the website, Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, "an asexual person is a person who does not experience sexual attraction." To me (and most logical humans, I hope), I don't think they are incapable of forming romantic relationship. The resulting second story is how I imagined such a relationship would form between Joana and Sho, had the latter been asexual. I fully recognize that there is a spectrum to asexuality, and that their experiences do not speak for the whole community.

Please note that I myself am not an asexual person, so if I have represented asexuality here in an inaccurate manner, please do feel free to correct me.

 _There is a boy who starts out with a silver spoon wedged between his small mouth, with people ready for his beck and call. He is a lion heart, doing all the things the adults should have been doing._

 _And there is a girl born into a power hungry household, avarice flowing in her veins indirectly, it flows like blue lightning, ready to make her a marionette of paper and gold._

 _They meet in a huge mansion, amidst masks of blues, gowns of white, pearls of gray, hearts of red. Faces lost in the crowd._

 _And he did find her, her and gloved hands, hair in an elegant waterfall of curls, and held it in his. And just like that, bolts and fire fuse together, and they turn into a foundation._

 _\- Excerpt from Segismundo (Sho and Joana)_

I.

They take things slow and Sho is surprised on how much he enjoys it.

And it amazes how much Joana warms his heart. The way she hides her bare face when she washes it with the many skincare products he can't even pronounce, the way her hands lift to her hair and tucks them behind her hair whenever she feels nervous, or when he tells her she's beautiful. The way her cheeks flush when she sees him in early mornings. The way, she always orders chocolate cake and hates the taste of wine. How the dimples in her cheeks appear when she plays with children.

They hold hands during their walks towards the theater, under café tables, two palms used to indifference, lashes and paper, two palms used to being so alone; two palms finally finding warmth within the other. And he notices how much smaller her hand is; less calloused and dainty; he feels the urge to always hold it, and when he kisses her knuckles and hears her little contented sigh, he doesn't really have the heart to let it go.

They kiss and he makes sure it's close mouthed and chaste, soft as butterfly wings, he leaves trails of them on her face; lingering on the tops of her eyelids, the apple of her cheeks, the line of her jaw; he's never pressured to her to go further than she likes, never made to feel as if she has to repay dinner or gifts with sex, never has to worry that he wants her for her looks alone, never has to feel not as pretty, not as smart, not enough, because he never compares her to anybody else.

It's easy. Being with her. Liking her. Loving her.

He's the one who says "I love you" first, when he zips her black gown and she faces him, and unexpectedly bury her face against his neck to hide the unexpected sting of tears when he kisses her forehead, reassuring her so, because nobody's ever been the one to say it to her first. She feels like she's spent her whole life chasing after love, after happiness, and he offers it to her so, so easily.

And it scares him, because despite of his more mature disposition in life, how he was exposed so much to these ordeals, nights spent groomed by his father, nights of musk and red lipsticks, there is still the surge of desire that runs through his veins and although he wants to kiss lower, to the valley of her neck, to her collarbones, and he wants to nip behind her ears; she is still someone he will respect and treat carefully.

If it means he gets to be with her, if it means she will stay and love him, he'll give up sex. He'll touch himself furtively in the bathroom where she can't see or hear him, he'll fight back the urge to press her against the wall and kiss her breathless, he'll ignore the tightness of his pants, the way his body betrays him and demands friction. Instead he walks her home, kisses her cheek and murmurs into her hair how much he is lucky to have her; how much she is his foundation.

She pulls lightly at his polo and she's kissing him just the way he leads them, close-mouthed but firm, no tongues, just heated lips and sure movements, and it's better than he ever imagined.

Because he knows one wrong move, one wrong touch and even one wrong longing look, everything that they have suffered and worked for will vanish.

Moans and groans echo off the walls and were swallowed and muffled by the rich fabrics that decorated the space. The scrape of fabric on fabric as bodies mingled added to the capriccio of sounds, but was easily drowned out by the sound of kissing.

Lips tasted lips and then neck and collar and breasts.

Sho inwardly cursed at himself. So much for fucking self-control.

Joana spread her legs to accommodate him and her nightgown had been hiked up so that he could nestle his legs between hers and she arched her back when he pressed his hips against her.

He growled when he heard his name on her lips. It rang sweet, mingled with a moan, in his ears.

Joana was exquisite, his eyes roamed over her form, she panted lightly, and her eyes glistened with desire and hesitation. Her hair was tousled and loose, splayed in wild kinks and waves, draping over her shoulders. The straps of her silk nightgown had fallen to her shoulders.

And she looked at him with glassy eyes, and it takes everything in him not to pin her down the mattress.

Sho inhaled a deep breath, to calm himself, and pressed a light kiss to her lips, cupping her face, lightly and she moaned. It was a cruel sound and his body stirred. They quickly fell back into their pattern of kissing, only this time, Sho made no further move to undress her.

Joana pushed into him and he hissed at the closeness of their groins. Too much cloth and fabric sat between them and he growled and gripped her hips tightly, pulling her roughly against him, hoping she could feel his desire.

She did, and moaned and his frustration mounted.

The moment, he felt her lips against his stubble, and her fingers traced the length of his arms, he stopped abruptly. The silence between them thickens, and Joana, stubborn and needy, tried again, her hands went under his shirt, tracing his abdomen and then Sho felt her nails scratching across his back, and he now he was the one letting out a groan.

"I want this," she whispered softly as she kissed behind his ears, "I want this" she said again as she kisses along his jaw, slowly, enough to tease, "I want you,"

Her fingers graze lightly to the band of his boxers when he thankfully caught them, and he firmly said "No," that little world seemed to make her eyes tear up and looked at him,

"Am I not good enough for you? Am I not experienced enough to handle you?"

"You are good enough but Jo-"

She angrily pounded her free hand into his chest "You hesitated! I am not good enough for you, you know that."

Sho gripped her wrist and pulled her towards him roughly. She had spiked his anger.

"I get to decide what is and isn't good enough for me and I would have you."

Joana tried to free herself from his grasps but he did not release her so easily. When she spoke, he saw the look of panic in her eyes.

"So you would hurt me?"

"Never!" Sho's grip released instantly and he watched as Joana pulled away, cradling and stroking her wrists. Standing from the bed and smoothing out her wrinkled nightgown, tears have now streaked her face. He regretted how he had restrained her, how he had let his anger get the better of him.

Perhaps it was he that was not good enough for her.

He caught her lightly in his arms and he swiped at the tears threatening to fall down her face. "You know that." he said softly, however, Joana was not content with his answer and he could not fault her for that.

"Then why are you stopping me?" Her question was laced with such sadness and anger and although Sho tried to suppress his frustration, she had been the one to instigate this, to act upon the hidden desires he never knew she had because he's been trying too hard to convince himself that she does not feel the lust too.

"I do want you!" he said in desperation.

When he said that Joana began to tremble in his arms and he began to realize the complex emotions that swam through her and their lust for each other only complicated the situation.

"Tell me your fears, Sho" she implores "All of them." Joana carefully placed her hands on his fact to make him look at her.

Sho leaned his forehead against hers and he sighed deeply, the lines of his forehead appearing slightly, his hands nervous and he can only grip the small ribbon that is against Jo's waist, because he needs to control himself. "My father, you knew how he was,"

"He groomed you," she said softly "Groomed you and then left you alone."

Sho remembers it all, the suffocation, the expectations, a little kid stumbling and etching crayons on office halls, a teenager memorizing staff members, a young adult handling a company who was used to a cold and calculating head and not an idealist; not to a lion heart doing the things adults should have been doing.

He tells her everything, he remembers everything, how vivid yet so empty the sunlight is always pressed against the windows, soft mattresses, how he learned to swallow moans, how to please, Over the years, he's learnt how to cater personally for the clients he sees regularly. Finding out from Apple, the same age as him, with enchanting eyes and thick hair that he loves to run his fingers through, that he likes it when he's got her wrists tied to the bedpost above her head. He decorates Ella, entering college and loves to talk, with constellations of hickeys across her stomach. Samantha, young and new to all of this, likes being called sweetheart, and he pays extra when she swallows.

He smooths the ribbon in his hand and he just can't afford to look at Joana anymore as he tells her of the times that he feels that release, how the women under him grasp the sheets, bringing their hands to the "o" of their mouths. He remembers tight corsets and red lips, names blur in his mind, sometimes he calls them by another, on the nights of pure insatiable lust, he doesn't even get their name nor does he even bother giving his.

Joana, interlocks her fingers with his that were holding the ribbon of her nightdress; and Sho take it as a way to continue.

There's no vulgarity with her. No whips or hot wax or anything that makes him catch his ouch between his teeth and he tries to imagine fucking Joana like that. He tries to figure if Jo would like it if he tucked his head between her legs, if she'd wrap her legs around his waist as he pushed his hips into her, the sweet whisper of her breath on his cheek, moaning in his ear—

When he gets to that point, he has to close his eyes and put his head in his hands.

Sho's sex life did not belong to him. He lost his virginity when he was fourteen in some penthouse suite, and came back smelling like perfume and sweat. Sex was something he did to keep his father's approval. When it came down to it sometimes, he wondered why people even did it at all. It wasn't like it was that enjoyable.

But he does tell of Angela, with her perfectly shaped eyebrows and quick remarks, the way she only wears black lingerie.

Angela is different. He chooses Angela. And he didn't really think that it could make such a difference, but it does. He likes it. He likes her.

And he loves the rebellion of it.

It makes him smile fondly, when he's dressing himself and Angela is sweeping her hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. He looks down at his bare chest and sees the marks blossoming in her wake; thin, red lines marring his skin, light purple shadows cradling his hips. Usually, he minds when he's marked like this, because they feel like battle scars more than anything else, but right now, they feel like freedom. They're a fuck-you to his father, from both him and Angela, because right under Cheng Mendoza's nose, Sho Mendoza is having consensual sex and making choices and his father does not own him.

And he even admits to Joana, when he does try to do anything remotely sexual in nature, he fights to groan out the right name.

When he finishes, the young woman is frustrated with herself, and all the pent up thoughts and feelings swim and tear her apart. Joana doesn't think she is the prettiest girl her lover has laid his eyes upon, she doesn't even think she's the smartest he has discoursed with, she's been trying so hard, to be more, to be better, to know his side, to know him, to relish the trail of his rough, calloused fingers, but when he finishes, she is terrified that even in sex, Sho has expectations,

"I love you," he whispered, searching her eyes for any shift in her emotions. "Please," he continued, "I may not make love to you now, but you must know how much I love you. I have always loved you."

Joana sobbed now, falling into his arms and he hugs her close, trying to soothe her; and although, through choking sobs, she tried her best to string together sentences and apologize, and he could hear broken words of "I'm sorry", "not doing this again" "please don't leave me" and his heart breaks;

It doesn't surprise him that much when she isn't with him anymore and the room filled with the empty scent of roses.

After that night, they seem to not recover fast, for Sho's taste, Joana is an easy woman to please, and to irritate, so when she kisses him lightly on his cheek, simple hugs and light kisses and that are the only things they do, he knows something is wrong.

He messed up, he fucked up. Like he invented a new kind of stupid. A damage he can never undo type of stupid.

He drives out to the night life and finds Gia, his ex and still his best friend despite the messy typing up of loose ends, and when she spots him, she gestured to the seat beside her and orders tequila.

"Did you call her Angela too?" she says fighting back a small laugh.

"Fuck you," he replied curtly as he drank a shot.

"You know, when I knew of the whole brothel thing, I didn't really think less of you, you're still Sho, still scarily good at debates, has never had a sweet tooth in his life and you have determination in your eyes," and at that the man smiled at least "But since this happened with you and Joana, who mind you her parents –"

"Her parents only taught her to be greedy and pick gold, I know who Joana is, and she doesn't have to touch me to be gold, she was already golden,"

"Sure we both know that, but does she? You have to remember to take things slow again, she's a good two years younger than you, and although that doesn't look like a huge age gap, you're finished with college and maintaining a company, she's in her second year and still grasping."

"I know,"

"I'm just putting your thoughts on airplay," Gia plays with her cup and drawls at the dj skipping the song " You know the right steps and choices, you just have to kiss her gently again, hold her hands firmer, tell her that no, you don't have expectations in sex, that, - "

"I know, I need to reassure that I do love her, it's just I wish I could find the right time, the right place, because this is confusing me to no end Gia,"

"You know what I say? Coax her, take her to her favorite café, order her cake and talk it out, love should always be sure Sho, sure in your words, your actions. If she is not sure, if she is not sound on this matter, you both will fall apart,"

Sho rarely takes Gia's advice, he doesn't listen when she tells him to fix his tie, to visit the grave of his father nor does he listen to Gia saying that she doesn't want him to leave, so here he is waiting in Jo's beloved coffee shop, with a bouquet of sunflowers at his side, and rushed monologues in his head because, if there is anything he is going to lose today, it's definitely not Joana. He is not going to lose her laugh or her love

"I shouldn't have walked away the other day." Joanna started not quite looking into his eyes just yet, "I shouldn't have, but I did, I was afraid." she sat down in front of him, smiling small as she saw the chocolate cake in front of her, and just like that the words that were stuck in her throat, and releasing as a jumbled mess,

"It's hard for me to just be someone not worthy of your status, of your stature and I , and I" she stuttered "Felt as if you had expectations in everything else, in looks, in wealth, and that night even in sex, I already feel the weight of our age gap, and I feel just so insecure about everything now, but I love you, "

Joanna started fumbling out her words and felt Sho hands on hers, just like the way she does it to him when he's the one nervous, "I love you, I-I-I love you, I do! And I have been trying not to say it, I have been trying so hard to mash it down and ignore it and not say it... but it was never gonna work out because I love you. I am so in love with you. You're in me. It's like you're a disease, it's like I'm infected by Sho Mendoza." She laughs a bit crudely "I can't think about anything or anybody, I can't sleep, I can't breathe, I can't eat. And I love you, just all the time and every minute of every day, and - "

"And I love you too," Sho finished for her, and well he is the one now trying to piece his own words, and refraining himself from showing Jo that he's just as nervous and scared of rejection, of ending this, as she is. "I wanted to say sorry first and foremost," that made Joana look at him, "Because I made you uneasy, it made me seem selfish, that I only care about myself, and that maybe I was looking for validation in all of this, I want to say sorry because I made you cry again."

"And I want to say that no, I choose you not because of your looks, or your family, I chose you because you are Joana, and I love it when you laugh at my crappy drawings because you draw so well, I love it when you hum little kid commercials when we walk together, and I love you despite the way you say you aren't pretty but I just see you as perfect, and I love you in a way a that a broken man loves broken things, and I understand that I can't fix you as whole, but I just can't leave your pieces, so I just had to, put all my love in the cracks." With those last words Sho fished out his hander kerchief and carefully dabbed at Joana's stray tears.

"And we'll get to that point okay?" He reassures and Joana nods, moved and convinced that everything will be better, and now, is picking at the almost left cake and, she smiled happily. "I promise, I just don't want to hurt you, nor do I want you to suffer the consequences,"

"Because after all, you may not be my first, but you're always going to be my last,"

II.

She isn't sure when she first noticed him that way— and she is so sure that it's not that night where they met at that masquerade ball. And although yes, he has a voice that makes her heart want to take flight, and yes he is handsome, and yes, he is kind.

She thinks it may have been after one of his speeches at his debates, when he'd talked so passionately about the need for change, how unruly the government has become. Then after the end of the rally at their university and the clean-up, she'd noticed him helping an older, homeless woman into his car, plastic bags full of her belongings, clothes threadbare if cleaner than others' she'd seen on the streets. The old woman probably didn't notice the bags of groceries at the back of the vehicle.

She had asked Charles who she was.

"Oh, Stella? She's one of the homeless people Sho is friends with—she used to be a professor at the local university before the lay-offs, then her husband got cardiac arrest and the medical bills were too high to pay. She's a quiet, enduring ember —if you treat her like a charity case, she'll just laugh at you, and roll her eyes, but she'll take help if you let her help you back. Sho usually drives her to the shelter in exchange for her opinion on his speeches."

It isn't a side she'd thought the marble man could exhibit, an understanding of the people he's trying to help and a recognition that they've got as much to offer him as he does them.

And after that, it's a dozen little moments piled together: how he downs three cups of black coffee, how he runs his hands through his hair when he's stressed, how he forgets to shave his stubble, his endearing love for all the children in the orphanage nearby. How he is 27 and he still doesn't know how to properly tie a tie.

Soon, Joana realizes that her heart—which used to only feel so cold, beating for her parents greed and misfortune, —her heart warms at the sight of him.

It's not excitement, it's not even infatuation, they are too old for silly crushes, it's a quiet, steady thing that creeps up on her and nevertheless changes everything.

So one day, in the middle of a debate on the justice system, she takes one of his strong hands in hers, leads him to the dimly lit corner of the room, leans forward, and presses her lips to his.

And, oh, how the warmth in her heart blooms into heated passion.

There's a problem, though.

He doesn't kiss her back.

The moment she realizes this, the warmth disappears as if it had never been there. She pulls back, cursing herself for being all kinds of a stupid idiot, and opens her mouth to apologize, to say forget it, to ask him to pretend her momentary lapse of judgment never occurred—

"You like me," he says, his words parting halfway between a statement and a question.

She swallows the lump in her throat heavily. "Yes."

Unexpectedly, he blushes red and looks down, looking oh so terribly young, despite the eye bags and the forming wrinkles, and unsure of himself. "I—you—I'm not sure this is a good thing," he stutters.

Her heart cracks a little. Is she so, that, unlovable? He's the man who gives everyone a chance, and she'd thought that maybe—no. It doesn't matter what she thought. Joanna knows when not to be selfish. "It's okay," she replies woodenly. "I'm not going to go after you if you don't like me back—"

"But I do!" he blurts out.

She blinks, once, twice. "Wait, what?" her eyebrows scrunches.

He traces nervous patterns on the table surface, tugs on his I.D, and this hesitation isn't like him at all. "I like you romantically," he states.

The warmth is splendidly spreading in her chest. She smiles at him, bright and happy.

He smiles back hesitantly before continuing, "It's just—are you aware that I'm asexual?"

Her brows lift in surprise and she's slightly too shocked to say anything in reply.

He gives out a little huff. "I'm guessing that's a no, then. I've never really kept it a secret, so I thought Carl or Bobby or one of the others may have told you…" He peers at her underneath his eyelashes.

"Well," she says slowly, "they told me you weren't interested in relationships right now, and Mark mentioned that you used to date Gia, but that you'd also gone out with one or two more girls in high school, so I figured I at least had a chance."

Fuck. She's not quite sure how much of a chance now. She's perfectly aware that her sex appeal is one of the strongest things she's got going for her—and all her ex-boyfriends and her father's groping cronies had made that clear. She's not sure how that would work with a person who isn't really interested in sex.

He smiles wryly. "Trust me; it's more than a chance. But..." He looks her firmly in the eye, and declares, "I'm never going to be what society classifies as normal. I'm never going to want sex with you, and I'm fine with holding hands or kissing, but frankly I find sexual intercourse itself to be mildly uncomfortable. So I would understand if you would rather not pursue a relationship with me."

She tilts her head and looks at him closely. "All…right. Let me get this straight—you like me, but you don't want to have sex with me."

"In a nutshell," he replies.

"But you would be okay with dating me?" she presses.

He nods, but holds himself stiffly, as if bracing himself for rejection. "Yes. But I'm not certain you would be content with—"

"You let me worry about that," she says firmly reassures. "Let's date and just…see where this goes, okay?" She takes his hand in hers and raises a brow in question.

"Okay," he says, looking surprised. "Okay."

They take things slow, and Joana is surprised at how much she likes it.

They hold hands, fingers linked under the tables during formal dinners, when they're walking down the street, after he cooks her dinner at her apartment.

They cuddle, her body fitting snugly against his on her ratty old couch as they binge watch Grey's Anatomy, on his leather love seat as they argue about politics, about conspiracy theories, about whether or not Lang Leav is a great poet or not.

They kiss, close-mouthed, chaste kisses where he brushes his lips against hers, gentle as butterfly wings. He peppers her face with them, lingering on her eyelids, her cheekbones, the line of her jaw. He murmurs how smart she is, how beautiful, how strong, how lucky he is to be with her.

With Sho, she's never pressured to go further than she likes, never made to feel as if she has to repay dinner or gifts with sex, never has to worry that he wants her for her looks alone, never has to feel not as pretty, not as sexy, not enough, because he never compares her to anybody else.

Instead, it's easy. Being with him. Liking him. Loving him.

After all, he's the one who says "I love you" first, and she has to bury her face against his neck to hide the unexpected sting of tears when he does so, because nobody's ever been the one to say it to her first. She feels like she's spent her whole life chasing after love, after happiness, and he offers it to her so, so easily.

So when he asks, hesitantly, haltingly, if maybe she would like to go and try things further…? She shakes her head firmly, presses another close-mouthed kiss to his beloved lips, and tells him no, thank you, she'd rather not if that was okay with him.

And the look of pleased surprise on his face is more than enough to keep her satisfied.

It's true—if it means she can get to keep him, if it means he will stay and love her, then she'll give up sex. She'll touch herself furtively in the bathroom where he can't see or hear her, she'll fight back the urge to press him against the wall and kiss him breathless, and she'll ignore the ache in her belly that accompanies the warmth in her heart whenever she catches sight of him.

She's had always been an expert at being what people want, and if what he wants is her to not want him, she can do that. She can be that.

She won't ever, ever, ever risk losing him.

…

To be honest, he's always noticed her—it's impossible not to, who in the hell does mental anti-differentiation? And has time for volleyball and makeup.

But still, he remembers the first glimpse he had of her: yellow ball gown, white mask and a charming smile.

He'd seen her, in the auditorium or in the quadrangle, and he'd wanted to know more about her, know why exactly it was that her gaze seemed so lost when her feet moved with such indignant purpose.

It takes a few months and more than a few moments spent gazing after her and finally an intervention staged by Charles to realize he's fallen in love with her.

It's a horrible realization for a lot of reasons, including the fact that he doesn't have time for a relationship, with the death of his father and earning the rights to multinational company, thesis and graduation, and the gut-deep knowledge that he'd have absolutely no chances with her.

"I don't see why you can't just ask her out," Charles says reasonably.

"Can't you?" Sho spits out, taking his frustration out on his best friend. "She's got men lined up for streets, going after her. She has a lot going on too. She's not going to look twice at somebody like me."

Charles merely gives him a patiently exasperated look and shakes his head, not saying anything in reply.

What else is there to say, after all?

: :

Two weeks later, he's sitting in a quiet café and she's kissing him just the way he prefers, close-mouthed but firm, no tongues, just heated lips and sure movements, and it's better than he ever imagined.

The next fifteen minutes are even better than that.

The next six months are even better than that.

Almost before he knows it, they're moving in together, her embroidery laminated and he uses them as bookmarks on his books, her training clothes in the drawers next to his, her bubblegum-flavored toothpaste sitting by his contact solution.

It's the pieces of a life together, and sometimes he has to stop and take a breath because he always figured he was going to be alone—but now he's not.

Now he's with Jo, and he doesn't think there are words for this kind of happiness.

: :

Surprisingly, she's the most accommodating partner he's ever had.

In the first few months of their dating, he'll admit to being afraid that their relationship would end at any second—either because she made him too uncomfortable or because he couldn't give her what she needed.

He already made his peace with that, expected it with a kind of fatalistic resignation.

Instead, their relationship is everything he always wanted—intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying without being physically demanding. They talk and argue and debate, and they hold hands and they dance and they walk around arm in arm—

—and she never pushes him further than he likes, never makes him feel inadequate about being her partner, never even indicates that she was the slightest bit unhappy to be with him.

They've got their problems, of course, like the way she never wants to ask for help even when she needs it, and his tendency to resist admitting he's wrong even when he obviously is, and how they're both too stubborn for their own good, but in general their life is wonderful.

The unspoken threats of their parents tucked into the back of their minds, they do not want to apologize for coming out of it alive and loved.

He does get slightly worried, though, when she never takes him up on his offer for sex.

It's not that he wants to have sex, but he does want to make her feel good, and it's one of those things about relationships that he's learned to negotiate, carefully setting the boundaries of how far, how much, how often.

He's most comfortable with kissing and heavy petting, and he likes touching but not being touched, and he's relatively alright with intercourse, though he'll never seek it out and would be quite happy if he never had it again.

This…however, weirdly, doesn't ever appear to come up in conversations with Joana, who seems almost telepathic about what he wants and what he doesn't want. He's lost count of the times he's been one second away from asking her to pull back a little and she does it before he even gets a chance to.

Joana seems remarkably blasé and undemanding about the whole thing; she casually mentions early on that she has a vibrator, and she cuts her fingernails, so there's no need for him to have sex with her, and that seems adequate enough for the both of them.

: :

He wonders if she might not even be that attracted to him, if what she wants from him is exactly what he wants from her—love, companionship, knowing a person so well you didn't even need words to communicate.

After all, if she wanted more, she would have told him, right? Jo is startlingly blunt about what she wants, like a midnight stroll around parks, or cooking instant pasta at 2 A.M., and she's never hesitated to tell him anything else.

He mentions it to Gia, however, and his friend and ex-lover nearly spits out her drink.

"Shit, Sho, you're in trouble," she says.

Sho frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Joana's definitely got a sex drive, and you definitely don't, but I assumed you two arranged a weekly sort of thing, like with us," she answers. "Compromise and all that."

"Well, I offered, but she didn't seem interested," Sho says.

Gia raised her brow and told the bartender to get her another shot glass and proceeded to pour Sho one, "Well that's even worse. You mean she's gone cold even after you offered it? Because let me tell you, our girl was definitely interested in sex six months ago, and if she's saying she's not interested now, she's definitely lying. And that can't be good for either of you, Sho. Are you sure you explained things to her? Like sat down at the dinner table type? Maybe she thinks you're disgusted by her or something."

"I am not disgusted by Joana," Sho retorts coldly as he downs the alcohol.

"Well, yeah, I know that, but does she?"

"Of course she does. I told her I love her. How could I love somebody I'm disgusted by?"

Gia gives him an exasperated glance. "Look—it's hard for a sexual person to be in a relationship with an asexual person. Vice versa, too, obviously, but one of the reasons being with you was so hard was because for the longest time I thought you not wanting me sexually meant you didn't want me, period."

"I just want you to make sure you're communicating with her properly," the woman said firmly, looking him in the eyes, "And not letting her be a self-sacrificing martyr. You saw how she was with Mark, and that was just infatuation. She's sacrificed, the attention and help from her parents. She loves you—how much more do you think she would do for you if you're not careful?"

: :

The thought sits uncomfortably with Sho, so he does tries talking with Joana about it.

When he opens the doors to the kitchen and his heart warms at the sight of Jo in his t-shirt, a cup of milk by her side and getting bread from the shelf.

"Are you certain you don't want me to have sex with you?" he blurts out anxiously.

She stops in the middle of slathering Peanut Butter on bread to give him an odd look. "Well, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. I told you I'm fine with it. Why? Do you want to have sex with me?"

She's looking at him suspiciously instead of hopefully, like he had expected, so he answers honestly: "No."

"Okay," she says, shrugging, and she goes back to the fridge and pulling out a left over piece of chocolate cake.

: :

That night, when he's holding her in his arms, he casually tests the waters, and trails his fingers over the waistband of her panties.

She takes his hand and firmly laces his fingers with hers, bringing their joined hands to rest by her head and that seems to be the end of it. He pushes Gia's damned words to the back of his mind.

The two of them are just fine the way they are.

: :

They aren't, as it turns out.

A week later, he gets home (their home now, and God, that never fails to make him grin) from work a few hours early, and he's about to go and find her when he hears a low, almost pained-sounding moan coming from the direction of the bedroom.

He gets there, but the t.v isn't turned on and there is no food waiting on the table, it's empty, and he's beginning to think he imagined it when he hears it again.

It's Joana's voice, and he quickens his steps, running towards the bathroom. What's wrong? Is she hurt? Is she—

He opens the door to the bathroom, more than a little panicked, and stops dead in his tracks.

Joana's lying in the bathtub, knees raised and spread, head thrown back as her hands shift below the surface of the water in confident, easy movements, and he can appreciate the beauty of her desire without being moved to desire himself.

She doesn't notice him—her eyes are closed and she's too lost in her own gratification to hear his entrance. She trails a soapy hand up and down her body, and she moans again, low and heated, and he recognizes the sound as one of pleasure and not pain.

He hears his name on her lips, and oh. Oh, she's imagining—oh.

He closes the door quietly behind him and goes to kneel next to her.

"Joana," he says, and her eyes open and her head whips toward him. He begins to reach out to touch her cheek when she splashes water right into his face.

"Get out!" she shrieks, crossing her arms over her breasts and looking scandalized beyond belief.

"Joana, what—"

"Get out! Get out, get out, get out!"

He does what she says and retreats to the bedroom, sitting on their bed and waiting anxiously for her to come out.

He doesn't understand why she doesn't want him to see her. Did he read things wrong? He's not disgusted by her, but he never took into consideration the fact that she might be disgusted with him, that she finds the thought of having an asexual person touch her repulsive.

But then she was imagining him touching her, wasn't she?

He's so fucking confused.

: :

She comes out dressed in his bathrobe, the sash tied tightly around her waist, every inch of her covered. She looks as anxious and uncomfortable as he feels, and he pats the bed next to him in invitation, hoping she'll take it.

She sits down a few feet away from him and hugs her knees to her chest. Her head pressed to her knees

"I didn't want you to see that," she whispers like a child caught in the middle of the night sneaking in cookies.

"Why not?" he asks honestly confused. He's quite aware that she's a sexual being, with all the urges and desires that entails. She's still his Joanna either way.

"You don't want that from me—"She refuses to look at him. "You don't even like it when I touch you too much. How could I expect you to—" She cuts herself off and looks at him beseechingly. "I don't want you to think that I want more from you than you can give. Sho, I would never force you to do something you didn't want. Never."

He can't help himself; he gives a self-exasperated sigh and scoots over to her, leaning his head against the crook of her neck. "Goddammit, I hate it when Gia is right."

Her hand automatically comes up to pet his hair. "What do you mean?" she asks, a little warily. Although she is assured and always will be that Gia is a great friend to her and is too involved with alcohol and charity fund raising to meddle, it just, makes her, scared.

"She told me you'd gotten…the wrong idea about me." He plays with the tie of her—his—bathrobe. "That you think that sex isn't something you can ask me to give you."

She tugs angrily at curls of his hair and forces him to look at her. "Well, Gia doesn't know what the hell she's talking about, then, because I sure as hell wouldn't ever ask you to give me something you aren't comfortable with." Her hands come up to cup his face. "I know you don't want me," she says softly. "I'm fine with that. You're here anyway, aren't you? That's good enough for me."

Fuck. Sho closes his eyes and resists the urge to swear out loud. He'd really, really messed this up.

He pushes her back onto the bed so that she's lying down, then stretches out next to her and pulls her to him so that their bodies touch, the lines of him merging with hers, close enough that he can feel her frantic heartbeat.

"Joana," he says seriously, looking her in the eye so she knows he's telling the truth. "Just because I don't want to have sex with you doesn't mean I don't want you.

"I want you desperately. I want to see you smile and hear you laugh and go masquerade dancing again with you. I want to listen to you talk about life in China, I want to listen to you reciting your Grandmother's Hainanese chicken recipe, about life in about everything you care about. I want to hold hands with you, and kiss you, and spend mornings with cups of coffee. I want you in my house and in my bed and in my life. I want to grow old with you; I want to have a family with you; I want to spend forever with you.

"I want you," he says simply, wiping away the tears at the corner of her eyes. "And I want you to know that that's never going to change, that you shouldn't be afraid to ask me for the things you want, because I want to give them to you."

She clutches him tightly, and says brokenly, "I don't want you to leave me."

He holds her closer, throwing his leg over hers. "Never," he promises, pressing kisses to her eyes, her cheeks, her trembling mouth. "Never, never, never."

When he starts to kiss her lower, moving to her neck and the slope of her chest, she stops him. "Wait, you don't—"

"Joana," he says. "Do you remember when you dragged me out to that awful dance bar?"

She looks perplexed. "Ye-es…" she says cautiously, obviously not sure where he's going with this.

"And do you remember how I told you that I really would have preferred not to go, but I went anyway? And got really drunk, and danced with you, and let Gia draw flowers on my face in glow-in-the-dark paint?"

"Yes," she says again, grinning a little.

"Well, for me, sex is sort of like that. It's not something I want—in fact, it's something I would be perfectly fine never doing again for as long as I live. I never would have gone if I'd been by myself. But you know what? I'm with you now, and if going to dimly lit bars with bad music and not so great mixed shots, makes you happy, then I'll go. Because I love you, and even if I don't love those sorts of places, I do love making you happy and you're happier when I'm there with you."

She giggles and snuggles closer to him. "Did you honestly just compare sex to a techno bar? I'm telling Gia."

He groans and buries his face against her hair. "Don't. Please don't, my reputation has suffered enough thanks to that experience as it is."

She laughs some more, and he laughs with her, and soon she's letting him open the robe and press kisses to her skin, letting him murmur words of love and affection to her, letting him learn the lines of her body the way he's learned the lines of her heart. He touches her softly, reverently, and a little awkwardly, but she doesn't seem to mind if the way she's moaning out his name is any indication.

He brings her to orgasm with his clever fingers, making quick, tight circles around her clit until she's shuddering helplessly against him.

And even though he isn't stirred to arousal himself, the sleepy, content look in her eyes afterwards is satisfaction enough for him.

Joana rubs her hand against the muscles of his stomach. "You sure you don't want me to…?"

"I'm sure," he says, smiling a little at their role reversal. Honestly, this is the way things should have been from the start, and he feels a twinge of regret that he hadn't paid attention to her the way she paid attention to him.

No matter. He's paying attention now.

They fall asleep, pressed together close as close can be, and for them, what they have is more than enough.

III.

So, there they were now: sitting in her room with her while his shirt and coat were in the dryer. Not awkward or embarrassing at all-

"Sorry, but nothing me or mom have will fit you" Joana spoke into the silence, genuinely worried, though she was facing away from him.

"No, it's fine" he assured, though throughout it all, he too was embarrassed; he was shirtless in her own room, even if the reason was entirely explainable. "I'm not cold - if anything, I'm totally sweating over here" he continued, feeling it in the way his heart beat.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Jo glance at him out of the corner of her eye before going back to normal. "Your face is red."

"So is yours" he replied; he'd seen it for himself, not that he had any reason to doubt his own color. She said or did nothing, which he took as a good sign, before he caught sight of her bracelet - it was still a little fragile, but it was alright. "Thanks a lot. For taking care of your bracelet, I mean."

She hunched her shoulders a little, but not from cold, just nervousness. "I'm glad to" she mumbled, but sincere.

He had a little smile, before he reached into the back of his pants, holding one box out in his palm. "Here" he offered, to her little surprise. "These should never break. Go ahead."

Watching as she opened it, he liked how her face very subtly moved with curiosity - when it opened, she breathed out, the redness returning to her cheeks again. "Ah" she whispered her mouth opening in a little smile as she held it up; a light copper-colored pair ring.

A little embarrassed now, he turned his gaze. "That's what I was shopping for" he said, despite that, scratching at his nose. "Pair rings."

"You have one too, Sho?" the boy in question flashed his ring finger with a simple silver ring.

She jolted as well, as if she hadn't realized it, before looking down a little guiltily. "I've wanted one for a while now" she admitted, the red deepening.

"You've been hinting on it quite some time" he said, but with a touch of gentleness. "I told you; I wouldn't mind.

She averted her eyes a little. "I- I guess that, I'm just nervous about it" she whispered.

That made him smile; she was cute when nervous. Heck, she was cute overall, and he instinctively started moving closer to her on his knees - she didn't notice until he'd said "Me too", looking up just in time to register his closeness. Just then, he slipped his hands to her cheeks and to the back of her head, gently drawing her against his collarbone. In some vague sense, he felt the towel fall off, but that was far far in the background; nothing else but the two of them mattered right now.

"Sorry" he whispered low, somewhere around her ear, enjoying her warmth. "I just want to stay like this."

Far from being embarrassed though, she just accepted it, stirring her head against him - he heard a little intake of breath before-

"I really like your s-smell."

He gasped, his entire body having gone tense, and his heartbeat went right into his throat.

"Joana!"

He didn't know what he was going to say, or do - all he knew was that in that moment, his passion for this wonderful woman - his wonderful woman - had exploded. He was heating up even more, heart pounding in his eardrums, and his vision blurred once or twice. Just after that, his body realized that he'd moved, and slowly he began to adjust to this as well. He was now on his hands and knees, panting and sweating, while all sense of thinking seemed gone from his mind.

Joana lay below him, on her back with the coat fully open, though stopped by the sleeves. At exactly the same time, he saw the truth of what he'd long since known; her baggy clothes didn't do her body justice, even if he'd never truly seen it beneath them. The curves started at her hips, moving smoothly in bending motions before smoothing out just underneath her arms, one of which was raised from the motion of falling. Her breasts as well; big, but not too big, even restrained/clothed as they were, white straps teasing at this. Still, all that information gathered was not in his primary attention-

She was completely and utterly still, save for the heaving of her stomach, her hair splayed a bit to the sides. Her eyes shone as she stared at him, cheeks red, mouth open as well - whether with love, fear, passion, or some other mixture, he was not sure right now. But he was sure of one thing; even with the suddenness, the shock, if Joana were afraid or wanted to say no to anything like this happening, she would not hesitate to show it. Just being conflicted, confused or other in addition to willing (possibly) would garner the same thing, even if she waited till the last second.

He felt all this somewhere, but it seemed so hollow right now, so unimportant compared to the pulse in his ears, the wonderful woman laying beneath him with curves waiting to be touched, to be explored.

Moving instinctively, he started to lean down, hand reaching right toward her chest-

At that moment, images burst behind his eyes: Bright sheets, night life, Angela against the curtains, Gia crying.

-he stopped, just an inch from her, even as his body went rigid again and he gasped.

His pulse was still pounding, the hormones were raging to let loose and touch her, but something held them fast.

Several long moments passed, and Joana continued to stare at him with wide eyes... she hadn't seemed to notice his hand yet. Slowly, ever so slowly, he leaned his head down while keeping his hand absolutely still. Soon he was inches above her lips, feeling her heavy breathing, just as she was feeling his. "Joana?" he rasped.

Her name brought her out of it, and she briefly glanced down her own body, where her cheeks soon turned the deepest red, but soon back at him. "Y... Y..." she breathed, almost squeaking.

Some part of him wondered if she was trying to say his name, or 'You' as part of a statement, but he pushed that aside. "Jo" he tried again, slowly closing his eyes for a little; that made it easier. "You saw what I was about to do... right?"

"Ah... I-I... mmph."

If he wasn't feeling so hot, literally, he would have smiled. "It's true" he breathed. "I want you right now, Joana (she gasped)... but I can't just touch you without your permission, like I was gonna do, even in the heat of things."

He opened his eyes, and all he could see was her face, which was enough for him. "So I'm saying it now" he whispered gently, despite the pounding. "If you feel ready for anything, no matter how small, just say so, Jo. Same applies for not ready. Small steps, you know?"

It seemed like an eternity while they looked at each other, before he slowly felt her hand come up, touching his cheek.

"Small... steps" she breathed, her eyes half-closed, cheeks still red. She made little motions toward him, but couldn't seem to get closer.

He got it though, and gently touched his lips to hers - the love and warmth of it was slowly pushing the pulse away, and he could think again, if fuzzily. As he kissed her though, he noticed Joana was still quivering nervously, and he started to get why. She jolted when his hands pushed themselves under her back, but she held onto him as he carefully pulled her upright again. He wanted to make sure she would feel safe with him, and if laying on the floor was too fast, then he wouldn't push her. It seemed to work too, as she touched his shoulders as they kissed, though the quiver remained.

So this entire situation was making her nervous - well, he couldn't blame her, as he was in the same boat now that his hormones were dying down to manageable.

Every now and then, there were scattered bits of conversations as they kissed again and again.

"Sho?"

"Hmm?"

"If you hadn't stopped... would you r-really have taken me?"

He'd paused, his heartbeat threatening to return to his throat, but he forced it down. "I think I would have" he admitted faintly, before kissing her, but the same level they had been doing. "If you'd allowed me to, I mean - any sign that you didn't would snap me out of it, or so I really hope."

"Why?"

"I don't want to take advantage of you, Joana" he'd whispered, before deeply kissing her. "I mean it."

"T-Thank you."

It sounded so simple, but from her, it said it all.

At some point, he felt her hand touch his, and he tried to grasp it, but she moved differently than before. It almost seemed to be a guiding grip, and he gasped a little, thinking 'was she really gonna-?'... However, she only held his hand like that; it was unmoving otherwise.

"Sho" Joana whispered her voice weak in volume, but from sheer embarrassment. "I... I think I..."

When she didn't continue, he got a little smile, touching his other hand to her cheek gently. "You're not ready for any of the big stuff?" he breathed as a suggestion. She surprised him though by shaking her head a little-

"Most of it, y-yes, but I-" she whispered, her grip tightening from the effort. "I might like... a-a test run."

She said that last part very quickly, as if to get it over with, and she gasped heavily after she realized she'd said it (face turned redder than a tomato too).

Himself, he was a little confused, but worked to put the pieces together - most of the big stuff was definitely not happening, but she did want him to do something on the small scale. Only question was, what did 'test run' refer to? He had several tentative ideas, but he might need sec-

Jolting, it came to him, where he slowly held Joana against his collarbone again, using his one hand. "By test run, you mean" he breathed slowly, gently, "Just touch you for a minute or so, over your clothes, then stop? Is that right?"

She squirmed under his words, and it was so cute, the way she initially tried to look anywhere but at him because of the embarrassment. "I-I don't know what you mean" she whimpered, the red deepening again. "But t-there is a time limit."

A little smile again; trying to deny it, but admitting it at the same time whether she knew it or not. Cute.

"In your head?" he prodded gently.

She shook her head, and her left hand slowly became a fist, which she held just off to the side. He looked at it for a moment before he glanced at her:

"Sixty seconds, huh?" he breathed softly. It sounded out of nowhere, but he knew that once he started, she might get lost in the pleasure of the sensations; she couldn't only think the seconds through consciously.

The slightest dip of her head, glancing away from him, but simply embarrassed. "S-Starting now" she mumbled.

Well, that was to be expected, he mused - but the first thing he did was kiss her gently, to her surprise. Still, even as they kissed, he started moving his hands from her shoulders to just down her arms. They moved a little as he did so, before he gently touched the backs of his hands to her shirt fabric - even that caused her to jolt. He just smiled, making little circular rubbing motions as she squirmed, even at this little contact. Still, while he kept it up for a few moments, he soon turned his hands around, gently touching the palms to her chest now.

She gasped at the sensation, her eyes snapping open as they shone, while reflexively or otherwise, one finger (her pinky) extended to show that twelve seconds had gone by.

He noted that in his peripheral vision, while still gently moving his hands around, intending to be gentle. Joana made little sounds even at this, but he took his time, waiting till the second finger had extended before he started to squeeze. This boosted sensation made her gasp again, and he wanted to hear it over and over again, but he knew he couldn't, so he tried to enjoy it while it lasted tonight. He felt Joana start to tremble against his lower body, where they were still pressed together, but she held together, and so did he.

Third and fourth fingers went by like this, Joana's cheeks a very deep red as she panted, looking at him sometimes as he worked, and away sometimes when it became too embarrassing, or even just when she was panting/gasping in little bursts.

It was harder work, but he kept count of the last twelve seconds in his mind, hoping he wouldn't be going too far.

With eight seconds to go, he reluctantly removed his hands from her breasts - Joana's gasp of surprise, confusion and (very slight) want made him not want to, but he'd already committed to this. He moved his hands right to her hips, where she jolted first in surprise, then in realization when they began to tease her legs through the skirt, especially her inner thighs. She made several whimpers as a result-

Five seconds-

He kept up the inner thigh stroking, knowing he couldn't go straight to this next step without warning; just let it sink it a little bit more.

Three seconds-

Just then, he slowly moved upward, his fingers trailing onto her pubic area, clothed as it was.

Two seconds-

Joana gasped even louder when this hit her, and she continued to squirm heavily as he worked, panting heavily even if he was only lightly stroking. Still, that light stroking was directed just above/at her most private place, so it was no wonder she was reacting this way. He kept it up at the same level, even as he directed a glance at her mostly-open-now fist.

Zero seconds-

Her thumb remained curled.

A little confused, still unconsciously doing his stroking, he wondered if maybe he'd distracted her too well, or if his sense of time was really that skewed.

Negative two seconds-

Joana gasped, and like a rocket, her thumb extended.

That being his cue, he quickly and utterly pulled back from Joana, suddenly panting and sweating as if he'd run a mile in gym class, though he hadn't done anything of the sort! Across from him, Joana was just the same, though she held an arm across her breasts and the other fist over her stomach (and below). They just stared at each other as the seconds passed, but he only saw the way her eyes shone, the way her lips moved as they panted, and those little beads of sweat. As it wore on, he started to get afraid that maybe he'd done too much at once, and scared her. But her expression started to change, which he noted right away.

While still breathing heavily, her eyes were softening, even as the red deepened, and her mouth was soon set in a little smile. Very shy, heavily embarrassed, but happy even as she glanced away with her eyes.

Joana's happy, he thought, his whole body sagging with relief.

That little smile lasted all of two seconds as something clicked in her head; Joana gasped hard, and her arm/fist combo tightened across her body, even as her lip trembled nervously as the reality of what just happened apparently sank in.

It made him smile; she was so dog-gone cute, and she was all his. Or would be, once they had taken several hundred more steps like this, but he'd work hard to make sure she was beside him every day - especially after the ordeal he'd unwittingly put her through.

 _Cha-chunk_

 _"I'm home!"_

They practically froze.

A little after that

"Joana?" her mother called, before footsteps sounded close at hand, then the door opened (he braced). "Help me get dinner ready! Uhh!?"

He silently gulped to himself, but worked to keep calm; Joana was lying on her bed, currently turned away from him, fully clothed, even if no doubt wishing she could become invisible right now. He sat a respectable distance away on his knees, but shirtless, which was a problem. It looked suspicious, but it wasn't an immediate assumption one, or so he kept telling himself. Slowly, carefully, he turned his head to glance at Joana's mother, who blinked twice at the situation.

He didn't have to try for a sheepish expression, as it came naturally. "Hi, ma'am" he breathed with a similar tone. "I'm sorry to be introduced like this, truly, but it's not what it may look like."

"It could have been though" some part of him felt; if she'd been an hour later and they hadn't been interrupted... if he and Joana had gone further, and hadn't gotten dressed before she walked through the front door... they couldn't have moved fast enough to appear decent, not in this small apartment. Still, the image of Joana lying in her bed under the covers (everything at/below her chest covered), hair splayed and her cheeks deeply red, but eyes shining as she panted happily-

He nearly yelled when he realized what he was doing, and did everything he could to push the image away without Jo's mother noticing.


	5. Chapter 5

Show Me

Alice can be unselfish. She usually doesn't have to be, but she has the ability to be so. It usually means sharing her extra cookies or actually turning her paperwork on time, but this time - this one important time, it may mean breaking her own heart.

Alice is like a furnace.

Skin and hair as pale as the Nordic snow, but her touch is scorching as the sun.

It's no wonder they were pulled toward her, like wayward satellites, against her gravitational field.

So when she is not sleeping between the two, Akira and Ryou awaken quickly.

The imprint of her warmth is cool between them.

"It's too early to be awake," moans Akira as he sits up. It is 2am. The sheets pool around his waist, barely covering his nude form and the shadows of fingerprints on his hips.

"I thought we had worn milady out this time for sure," says Ryou, still lying face down on the mattress. His back is covered with scratches, some barely breaking skin, and others angry red marks with pinpricks of red still dotting his pale skin.

"You really need to stop calling her that at this point," Akira says; his voice is nothing but affectionate despite the dry tone. Even after all these years together, the indulgent whim has become something of a pet name for Ryou and even for Akira.

"We'll never hear the end of it if I did," replies Ryou as he playfully swats at Akira's thigh. He groans as he lifts himself up by the arms and gracefully rolls out of bed. He is unconcerned about his blatant nudity until Akira throws him a pair of boxers that were crumbled on the floor beside them.

"Milady?" Ryou easily slips into the boxers, Akira slips on a robe behind him, as they wander into the kitchen.

It was not unusual to find her in front of the stove, making a late night snack and catching up on one of her silly reality shows. She'll make enough for the three of them to munch on. They usually end up on the couch, their bodies tangled up together as they nibble on their snack while watching corny late night TV.

On the table, carefully wrapped in plastic, are two beautifully made rice balls. The soft white grains of rice glisten underneath the kitchen light.

Otherwise, the kitchen is empty. Quiet and still.

"That girl," Akira frowns.

Ryou strides over to the plate and unwraps the plastic from the rice ball and forcibly bites down. The grains of rice are soft and sticky, the sweet and sour tinge of vinegar and careful smear of pickled plum subtly cutting through the starchiness. Lastly, the salty tang of the seaweed used to wrap the rice ball complements the flavor of the rice and filling; it is a simple but filling dish.

It tastes like dust in Ryou's mouth.

"Milady is whimsical… she's probably running around getting herself in trouble."

Akira settles himself by Ryou as the other eats, obviously annoyed. He stares at the lone rice ball.

"That girl is so selfish, she should've at least left a no –"

Akira spies a piece of paper underneath the plate.

"Always causing a scene," he scoffs as he slides the plain slip of white paper from underneath the plate.

Alice's handwriting is unlike a typical girl's or even a normal person's. There's nothing cutesy or whimsical about the way she prints her words. Many people have commented that the way she writes is similar to a machine, her lines perfectly straight and legible.

His stomach drops when he sees the message.

It is curt and precise.

The remainder of the rice ball in Ryou's hand is smashed in his fists. His eyes are alight, his berserker mode swimming beneath the surface of an otherwise of his calm exterior "What is she thinking?!"

' _See ya_.

"Would you like any snacks before takeoff, Ms. Nakiri?" An attendant smiles at her kindly, a tray of various snacks in her hands.

"I've already eaten, but thank you," replies Alice as she wraps herself in her blanket.

"If you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask," reminds the attendant as she turns to leave. "We will be in Copenhagen in sixteen hours so please rest well until then."

It is quiet in the small jet once the attendant walks back to her cabin once she is satisfied that Alice is comfortable.

Alice is the only passenger. The stillness is unnerving. She is used to someone, no, two people, who are constantly by her side.

The hum of the engine comforting, it reminds her of her cooking equipment.

"This is for their own good," she states firmly into the quilt, burying her head into the soft folds.

It still smells like them.

…

"What do you mean you can't tell us where Alice is?" Ryou growls, only holding back from jumping over Erina's desk by Akira's firm hand on his wrist.

"We haven't spoken in days," replies Erina as she sets her cup of tea down. Hisako is glaring magnificently at the two, her fingers white against the notepad in her arms. While she is on better terms with Akira, and especially Ryou, than their first year, the fact that they disturbed Erina and Hisako during one of their very few breaks of the day is frustrating.

"Hisako," Erina finally relents.

"Yes, miss." Immediately, Hisako pulls up Erina's phone records. "Ah, you two last spoke three days ago regarding…" Her fingers slide the scream downward, "That new television series about the magical cooking princess."

Erina quickly swipes her phone from Hisako's hands. Her face is the same color as the cherry tomatoes she and Hisako were snacking on. "A-Anyway, we didn't converse about anything too important."

"You must know where she is," insists Ryou. "I have nothing on her schedule. As a matter of fact, we were supposed to be taking it easy after graduation."

Erina rolls her eyes. "You three are still the most surprising ones of our graduating generation."

Ryou and Akira look at one another and then pointedly stare at Erina.

She blushes, "Not about you three being together. Th – that was actually not too unrealistic considering your personalities. I'm surprised you haven't gone off and started your own restaurants or at least accepted a job offer."

Hisako nods, "Yes, if I remember correctly, aside from Erina, Souma, and Megumi, you three were sent the most letters of employment out of all the other students of Totsuki."

"It's not like they aren't going to hire us if we don't accept their offers immediately," explains Akira with a shrug. "We're still ironing out the details." He sighs, realizing the sense of déjà vu. This feels like a similar scenario back during their first year at the academy festival.

"That doesn't explain where Alice is," Ryou interrupted.

"Ah," Hisako's electronic tablet pinged. "Erina, Ms. Leonara is calling at the moment."

Immediately, Ryou and Akira perk up and stare expectantly at Hisako.

"How does Alice even handle you both?" stated Hisako, wincing under their stares.

"Put her on the large screen," directed Erina as she placed a comforting hand on Hisako's forearm.

"Y-yes," Hisako says, her cheeks tinged pink. With a few expert presses of her fingertips, Leonara's face appears on the large screen.

"Hello dear!" Leonara grins widely. "How is Japan this day? It is evening here and cold, very much so."

"Good evening, Aunt Leonara," Erina greets. "I hope you're doing well and – Hey!"

Akira and Ryou nudge Hisako aside to stand in front of Erina to face Leonara.

Leonara brightens as Ryou and Akira appeared in front of her monitor. She seamlessly switches to Danish, "You to look well! As handsome as ever, I see."

"Hello, ma'am." Ryou states, easily switching to his native language. "Have you spoken to Alice recently? She's not picking up her phone."

"Oh yes! Alice is doing fine," replied Leonara.

"Can you tell us where she is lo - located?" Akira asked. Akira's abilities to pick up Danish had been frighteningly quick during the two years he had been together with Ryou and Alice, while his ability to speak it is sufficient at best. "She is with you?"

"I cannot and will not tell you." Leonara eyes the two carefully, her charming and friendly demeanor seamlessly transitioning into the chillingly intimidating version of herself that they had only witnessed during tasting sessions.

"Why not?" Ryou narrows his eyes, his fingers twitching against the headband against his side. Akira's hand is still firmly around his wrist; this thumb pressed comfortingly against the pulse point.

"We just want to know if she's okay," adds Akira. He and Ryou briefly look at one another. "We don't remember upsetting her but we would like to speak to her once she's calmed down."

"She's doing well," reassures Leonara. "Thank you two for your concern." She tilts her head to the side, scrutinizing the two before she smiles. "It was good talking to you, but I need to go."

"Wait!"

"Ma'am!"

The screen abruptly clicked off, leaving a blank screen.

"We have to go to Denmark," Ryou states.

"We don't know if she's really there," Akira mumbles, frustration clear in his voice. His grip on Ryou's wrist is tight and surely after this is over, there will be fingerprints on his skin.

"It's better than sitting here doing nothing!" Ryou snaps.

"Alice is a big girl," sighs Erina as she leans back against her seat. "You two go home and cool down, you're ruining the taste of my tea."

Ryou and Akira shoot her a withering look.

Erina relents, "I'll find what I can about her whereabouts but right now, you're doing no one, especially Alice, any good by getting mad."

Hisako ushers them out.

When she returns, Erina is finishing her tea and typing something on her tablet.

"Miss?"

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Erina?" She sighed, a fond smile on her face as she scoots over in her seat to make room for Hisako.

"E…Eri…" Hisako fidgets as she sits herself beside Erina. Her face was flushed, but her eyes glow happily when Erina loops an arm around her and held her close. She restes her head against Hisako's shoulder.

"I'm waiting."

"Ah…" Hisako gulps, her fingers tangling into the hem of her skirt.

"Erina looks up her, her eyes widening slightly. "Unless you don't want to call me by my name…?"

"N-No!" Hisako turns toward Erina, grasping her fingers. "E…Erina."

Erina smiles happily at her.

If possible, Hisako's cheeks burn even more, her insides fluttering as she attempts to match Erina's gaze. Before…before she would've been too bashful and turned her head away from the sight of such perfection that was Erina, but the selfish part of her, the one that wanted to keep Erina only to herself, urges her to continue to gaze at her.

Erina quickly averts her gaze downward at her desk before she defiantly leans back up and pushes Hisako against the back of the chair, straddling the girl. She presses her hands against Hisako's face, her palms rough and callused from wielding a knife a comforting and grounding feeling against her smooth cheeks.

"You're not allowed to leave me," commands Erina. If Hisako dared to think, she would like to think that Erina's voice sounded desperate. "Not ever."

Hisako mutely nods, tilting her head upward, her lips eagerly parted as Erina leans down. Their kiss is slow and sweet like fresh cherry tomatoes.

…

She doesn't notice it until later. Erina is distracting her, not that she minds.

Hisako is keeping her voice from being her by biting into her hands, her teeth digging into the soft flesh of her palms. Her legs are spread wide against the arms of the chair as Erina meticulously licks the inside of her quivering core, her fingers easily sliding inside out of her as if she was spooning fresh whipped cream. She notices a ping on Erina's tablet.

An email.

From Alice Nakiri.

Before she has the mindset to say anything, Erina licks particularly hard against her clitoris and Hisako's mind blanks out and her only thoughts are ' _Erina, Erina, Erina_ …"

It's later that afternoon that Erina disentangles herself from Hisako's sleeping form. Her fingers briefly slide reverently against the woman's lips, still damp and slightly swollen from overuse from earlier, before she grabs a robe and disappears into the hallway into her study.

"I hope you didn't wear out your adorable assistant," says Alice gleefully as she appears in Erina's monitor.

Erina doesn't bite. "Why didn't you at least tell them?" She leans against the back of the chair, "Do you know how many strings I have to pull to delay Ryou and Akira from flying out to Denmark to find you?"

"Always so serious, Erina," sighs Alice with a pout, completely ignoring the statement. "Poor Hisako, she has her work cut out for her with you."

Erina flushes, her fists clenched. "She and I are perfectly fine! It's you abandoning Ryou and Akira that is so crazy!"

"I didn't abandon them!" Alice retorts. Her eyes are bloodshot and almost the color of her pupils.

"You are a wretched liar," says Erina.

"They…" Alice turns her head and grits her teeth. "I'm not being selfish this time, Erina."

"Well you have gotten better about acting like the world should come at you beck and call," nods Erina. "Although it's mostly in part that Akira keeps you grounded and stops Ryou from enabling you."

"That's why I needed to give them a break." Alice's voice cracks and Erina leans forward, there are fresh tears dripping down Alice's cheeks. "They need a break from me."

"You've all been together for two years," hurriedly says Erina. "The fact that you made it past the school festival without killing one another is impressive, I'm pretty sure they knew what they were getting into when pursuing a relation with you."

Alice slowly shakes her head, attempting to futilely wipe the tears streaming down her face. "You know we all got a bunch of letters to different restaurants, right?"

"Uh huh…"

"They were both invited to New York for their apprenticeships."

"Ah…yes, I do remember." Erina muses, "There were more than a few Michelin restaurants that were attempting to recruit them. Really good ones at that."

"Yeah… but there are none near that part of America suited to my skillsets." It's an obvious brag, but she's right. Unfortunately, molecular gastronomy is popular, but not sufficiently popular for Alice to fully show off her skills. "However, there's several molecular gastronomy restaurants that wanted me in Los Angeles," continues Alice. "And Ryou and Akira were willing to forgo some of the best restaurants in the western hemisphere to follow me."

"There are good restaurants in Los Angeles," argues Erina. "They'll be magnificent wherever they go!"

Alice pounds her fists onto the table. "I'm dragging them down by causing them to follow me."

"You're not dragging anyone down, Alice." Erina sighs and thinks of Hisako. To think her brilliant and self-absorbed cousin would throw her such a large curveball that would renew her unease with her own connection with Hisako. Her relationship with her assistant is new and tentative and it is still difficult to remind Hisako that she is more than worthy of being her assistant and partner, in cooking and life.

"You make them better, Alice."

"Overstatement."

"You expanded their world!" Erina insists. "It was all about fighting and winning in the kitchen for Ryou. For Akira, I still can't believe you and Ryou managed, but somehow you made him realize that he had worth separate of Professor Shiomi. Those two are amazing, but you make them extraordinary."

"It's true, my dear," says Leonara as she settles herself beside her daughter on the couch. "To think that you could tame such wild beasts, I'm so impressed with you!" She indulgently wipes Alice's nose, "And I'm even more proud that you've grown into such a beautiful young women by being with them."

Erina nods her head in agreement. "You have matured so much as a result of those two. You always say it's important to step out the box to be able to truly appreciate the wonders of cooking, but you never looked to see your clients and consider them into your cooking."

"It's true," remarks Leonara. "Your cooking speaks to the heart. It's moving."

"Your cooking is pretty good," Erina admits. "Now that you're considering those that are eating your creations." She slyly smiles, "Not as good as mine, of course."

Alice throws a pillow at the screen in retaliation.

Erina smiles fondly at her pouting cousin, "Better yet," she and Leonara share a glance. "Look at you now."

"Puffy faced and ugly?" Alice sniffles.

Leonara chuckles, "No, my sweetheart. Look at you, all the way in Denmark just so that the two men you hold dear can have the opportunity to be great. Except," she taps Alice's nose, "Don't you remember? The greatest of dishes can only occur when the chef is cooking with love in their heart."

"But –"

"Communication is key to a long lasting relationship," interrupts Leonara. She pointedly looks at Erina as well.

Erina fidgets in her seat.

Leonara continues, "Especially with two other people, let alone men."

"I did what I thought was best, mother…"

"I know you did," chuckles Leonara. She envelopes Alice into a hug, "My future son-in-laws are amazing. To think you would put two people's happiness ahead of yourself is truly impressive."

She smooths Alice's hair back, "Ask them. They'll be honest. This is Ryou and Akira, they do not lie very well."

"Not in the least," quips Erina. Those three were so horribly bad at covering up the fact that they were in a relationship, it was painful for their friends to watch.

Leonara giggles, remembering the earlier days of when the three first started their relationship. She would ask what was making her daughter so happy in the two men's presence, and enjoy watching the blood drain from all of their faces. "They will tell you what they need."

"What if…" Alice starts and stops. A moment passes and she inhales and exhales. "What if their answer doesn't involve me?"

"I will ruin their careers," says Leonara cheerfully.

Erina nods her head, "Same."

Alice suddenly burst into giggles. "You two are ridiculous."

Leonara presses a kiss against her daughter's forehead. "Everything will turn out well."

Alice nods, doubt still on the fringe of her mind. "I hope so."

…

"So much has changed!" Alice admires as she walks around the port. It is the same port where she met Ryou. After a lengthy tour of the gastronomy learning institutes of Norway and Denmark for the past three days, it was a relief to walk around without answering questions and people watching over her shoulders.

The old timers of Ryou's pub still remember her and more than happily allow her to have her way in the kitchen once their last customer has finished their meal.

"The missy's fancy techno-cooking has become even more absurd!" The pub staff marvel eagerly around her prepared dishes.

On their plates are cold smoked salmon filets, still simmering in their heat resistant foil packets. Sparkling like rubies atop of their fish are tiny spheres made from pomegranate and ginger extract. Beside the fish filets are curried root vegetables in transparent ravioli, the clear and shimmering edible wrappers carefully made from soy lectin and lightly doused a cilantro foam.

"Help yourself," Alice smiles as the staff grab their forks and sit closer to their plates.

She leans against the counter, watching in satisfaction as their faces lights up. Their bodies freeze in pure and utter bliss with the first bite of her food.

"If you really wanted to hide away," says a familiar voice.

"Going to your mother's was not a bright idea," finishes another.

"I just came back to Denmark today, actually." Alice turns around and comes face to face with Ryou and Akira. Their faces are haggard, but that's to be expected when on a commercial, twenty-nine hour plane ride from Japan to Denmark, with three layovers in three different countries. Erina did a marvelous job holding up their passports and delaying their ability to buy airplane tickets to Denmark.

They make no movement forward nor does she.

"Anyway, you should eat something." Alice motions towards the bar stools. They pointedly keep their eyes on her as if she will evaporate before their eyes at any moment.

She serves them the fish and ravioli, her smile widening as their eyes widen at their plate.

"What inspired you to make this dish?" Ryou asks as he cuts into the fish. He eyes it critically. It is tender and flakes easily against his fork.

"Memories," replies Alice.

Akira sniffs at the ravioli, "Cinnamon."

"Yup," she leans against the heels of her shoes.

"Good memories. All that I had with Ryou," her gaze moves from Ryou to Akira. "And at Totsuki Academy."

The first bite.

A flood of memories the past two years.

Two individuals meeting a third.

Akira whose world was once Jun finally realized that he had something else to live for.

For himself.

And the two people who had irrevocably bypassed the walls he had erected for Jun's sake.

It started with Alice.

Somehow they had been drawn to one another as a result of the school's festival. Akira provided her with insight that she had not been able to understand during the autumn festival, and Ryou, finally realizing that he could not coddle her, no matter how much his instincts screamed at him to do so.

Alice caused him to look away from Jun, his most precious person at the time. His eyes suddenly began following another person, and he found himself caring for another, which turned to two people actually.

Surprisingly, the least vocal member of the group, at least when he was not in Berserker-mode, instigated this three-person relationship.

It basically went like this: he lifted Alice into his arms and settled her atop Akira's lap and pressed her between the two.

"Milady and I have discussed a relationship with one another but something has always felt missing," he had said. They had been childhood friends but only recently, with her eyes suddenly focused on Akira, did he realize that his gaze had suddenly grown into watching two instead of just one.

Alice stared unblinkingly at Akira.

"You," she stated at long last. "Akira."

Akira had gathered them both into his arms and that day was the start of a peculiar but dear relationship between the three of them.

This dish… this is her heart in front of them.

"Delicious," states Akira.

Ryou nods, "You could win against me with a dish like this."

"Maybe," Alice says softly.

…

"Are you going to explain why you suddenly left?" Akira asks at last.

They are all walking back to the Nakiri estate. Alice is walking between them, humming a silly jingle she had seen before she had left Japan.

"Milady," insists Ryou.

She suddenly bolts ahead and Ryou and Akira reach for her but she suddenly stops and they end up running a few steps in front of her.

"Alice!" Ryou moves his hand toward her but she shakes her head.

"Why are you doing this?" Akira is tired and his voice is desperate.

"I don't want to hold you both back," Alice says at last. It is starting to snow around them. "You both got amazing job offers in New York. Accept them."

Ryou and Akira share a look before looking at her confusedly. Akira speaks, "We were talking about Los Angeles…"

"That's not the place you want to be!"

Ryou barks, "Wherever you are is the place we want to be."

"I won't be the reason why you two aren't reaching your potential!" Alice insists.

Akira and Ryou simultaneously stride forward and each grab her hand, pulling her forward until she is surrounded by them.

"You're cold," says Ryou, his chin pressed against the crown of her head. "Strange since you usually run warm."

"I've been stressed," replies Alice.

"Fleeing the country and leaving your boyfriends to worry about you," muses Akira, his nose pressed against the slender curve of her throat. "Yeah, I can see why you would be stressed."

"Because these boyfriends are not seeing that there's a great opportunity right in front of them," Alice insists.

"We see it," states Akira.

"She's right in front of us," finishes Ryou.

"You two are stubborn idiots," cries Alice as she buries her face into Ryou's jacket. His grip on her unrelenting. "I love you both so much!" Alice is sobbing, red hot tears streaming down her face as she pounds her fist against Ryou's chest. "I'm trying so hard to let you go and you won't let me."

"We never wanted to be let go," Akira responds, pressing a kiss against her neck.

Ryou cups her face in his hands, his palms rough and cool against her flushed cheeks. "You'll have to try harder than flying across the world to get rid of us."

The insecurity, the worry, the fear that… she would be left behind, that they would say good-bye to her first, crumbles like a haphazardly built deck of cards.

"It's a promise," Alice commands, her voice hoarse. "That you won't leave me."

"Promise," they say at the same time.

The tears refuse to stop nor does the arms wrapped around her.

…

"They didn't sleep at all, huh…" Alice murmurs to herself. Akira and Ryou are sleeping, their bodies pressed firmly against hers, exhaustion clear on their features.

They trudge back to the Nakiri estate, her hands gripped in each of theirs. The snow had fallen down like puffy white diamonds around them against the soft glow of streetlights, the sound of their boots crunching down against the fallen snow the only sound on the quiet streets of Denmark. They barely had the energy to change into sleeping clothes before they collapsed onto the bed, their bodies intertwined.

Hours later, Alice wakes up with a start, confused as to where she began and ending amidst the limps and warm bodies that surrounded her.

Despite the weariness still in her bones, Alice feels lighter than she has in days.

Slowly, as slowly as was humanly possible, Alice extracts herself from between them, which was easier said than done despite the fact they were exhausted from their international travel, their grip on her was firm.

First, Alice had to lift Ryou's leg from across her thighs, which took an effort since he grunted and attempted to roll on top of her. Instead, half of his body ends up on top of Akira who scrunches his nose at the sudden weight.

' _Such a beast_ ,' she thought affectionately. With Akira, prying his fingers from her pajama top is slow work. Moving his fingers one by one from her garment nearly causes him to wake up more than once. He sighs softly against Ryou's back, his fingers clasping the other's tank top.

And people told her she was the clingy one, Alice thinks with a fond smile.

She spies her suitcase, tucked carefully beside her closet. In the corner of her eyes, she saw Akira and Ryou twitch.

Alice stands at the side of the bed, reminiscing. She stood like this a week ago when she had decided to leave them. She leans forward and presses a hand against Akira and Ryou's face. She frowns. The dark circles underneath Ryou's eyes had darkened and Akira was suddenly starting to get them. She carefully brushed her fingers against the tops of their cheeks, right underneath the darkened skin underneath their eyes; her fingernails skimming their long eyelashes.

"Sorry," Alice whispers.

…

They woke with a start. It's still dark outside.

Their eyes meet.

"Not again," Akira growls as he leans up with a start.

"Milady," Ryou rolls off the bed with a grunt. Her suitcase is still in the room.

Where…?

"That girl will be the end of us," states Akira. He pauses.

Ryou follows his line of vision, "The bathroom."

They quickly trot over to the bathroom, the door is ajar and the light is on. Steam softly billows from inside.

Opening the door, they see Alice sitting on the edge of the expansive tub. She is nude, her body flushed pink, and busy humming that silly little Japanese commercial for a pack of gum while drying her hair.

Alice looks up, smiling teasingly at the two as they stare in disbelief at her. "Hey."

Ryou and Akira walk toward and crumble to the ground with a sigh.

"You are too much, milady," groans Ryou, his forehead pressed against the warm tiles of the side of the tub. His hands reach toward her, his palm against her calf and his fingers wrapped around the firm muscle.

Akira presses his back against the wall of the tub. He closes his eyes. "Are we going to have to take turns making sure you don't run?"

"I just wanted to shower," pouts Alice. "Unlike you, I can't go to bed without cleaning the day's filth from me."

They both make non-committal grunts from either side of her.

"Alice," says Ryou suddenly. "Akira."

"Oh?" Alice and Akira turn toward Ryou. He rarely uses her name unless it was serious.

"I am a sore loser," he continues. He looks at them steadfastly, "You two are things I absolutely refuse to lose."

Ryou holds her hand and pulls her down towards him. She yelps and finds herself in his lap, her back against his clothed chest, and reminded that she was still very much naked.

"R-Ryou!" She squeaks as his hands slide down her body.

Akira nods, "Yeah… yeah, I get it." His eyes dart between the two, darkening as Ryou's fingers settle in her inner thighs, damp from the steam and perspiration, his hands keeping her from closing her legs. Akira kneels over her, his hands clasped on her forearms, keeping her from preserving whatever modesty in the wake of these two men.

"Alice, in response to your confession earlier, when you said you loved us."

Alice turns even redder. She… has never told them those words before. Neither had they, but it was never a thing that needed to be said.

"W-what are you two doing?"

At least.

"I do too," Akira says.

Until now.

Akira claps her hands, "You two, no matter how silly you both are… Are essential to me."

Alice glances to the side, blood rushing to her face and pelvis, she is starting to feel light headed. "You two are so odd, even your love confessions are un-romantic."

Ryou bites into the soft flesh of her nape, earning a squeak from Alice. Akira sweeps down and captures her parted mouth into his, his tongue slipping past her plush lips and slowly tasting her, savoring her like something exquisite.

Meanwhile, Ryou's fingers slide upward towards her twitching center, his fingers lightly playing with the short, course hair in front of her entrance before sliding one of his fingers inside of her with relish. She shivers, her back arching with the sudden invasion. He grunts, his breath hot and wet, as his fingertips explore the supple cavern inside of Alice. Another finger slides inside of her, and his callused fingers rub against her clitoris causing her to gasp his name inside of Akira's mouth.

Akira slowly slides his tongue against her lips before he moves away, a noise of want caught in her throat when she is freed from his clever mouth.

Instead Akira leans down and presses his mouth against Alice's clavicle, carefully nibbling against the delicate bones before he presses his tongue against the pink skin soothingly. Slowly he moves downward, kissing the skin on her chest until he ends up between her breasts, pressing his face against the junction of her ample bosom and breathing in with relish. She smells clean and so… _Alice_. He frees his hands from hers and move one upward to cup her breasts, his palm cupping the supple mound of flesh, his thumb pressing against the hardened nubs of her nibbles.

Alice squirms as the dual assault.

She feels Ryou jolt, his breath becoming uneven. She glances downward and see's Akira's hand disappear between her and Ryou's thighs, he had removed Ryou's night pants, and judging from the opened bottle of lotion beside Akira, he is currently prepping him.

"Alice… Akira…" Ryou huffs against Alice's neck, squirming as his hole is breached by Akira's slender fingers. Two fingers slide easily inside of him, aided by lotion, and his own fingers inside of Alice quickly match Akira's tempo as they scissor and slide inside of him. "Fuck…"

"M-more," she whimpers. Her fingers dig into Akira's scalp, the soft strands of silver hair entangled between her fingers. "Ryouuu….Akiraaa, please."

Akira pauses from sucking on the soft patch of skin between her breaths. He slides a third finger easily inside of Ryou's hot convulsing channel, earning a loud moan from the man. "Please, what?"

"Inside of me," she whimpers, futilely attempting to lift herself up from Ryou's lap and slide herself down his thick fingers. "I need you inside of me."

"So demanding," Ryou mutters as he pinches her clitoris, the delicate piece of flesh jolting between his fingers as Alice squeals. Her wetness is dripping down his hand and he feels his dick throb against her back. He wants to bottle the sound of her pleasured voice and feeling of Akira removing his fingers from inside of him and keep it with him forever.

Alice is panting, eager and wanting when Ryou lifts her easily by the hips, her thighs spread automatically as she settles herself against his firm front. Akira encircles his fingers around Ryou's cock, his thumb pressed against the slit, playfully pressing his dull thumbnail against the opening, earning a full bodied shiver against the man.

"Hurry up," barks Ryou, his fingers digging into her hips.

"Manners," Akira and Alice state simultaneously, earning a chuckle from them both. Ryou scoffs.

Carefully, Ryou lowers her while Akira guides his eager dick inside of Alice. His breathing quickly becomes rough as he watches Ryou's length disappear inch by inch inside of her.

"O-oh," pants Alice. Her hands eagerly reach toward Akira. "So good."

"Yeah," Ryou huffs, slowly moving her up and down his dick. It's only two or three inches, but the way he swivels his hips and her body grasping his cock like a glove, it's more than enough. Especially since it's been over a week since they've been like this.

"God, your scent," Akira moans as he leans forward and slams his mouth against Ryou's. Alice and Ryou's combined smell is pungent and thick like syrup and utterly addictive. It is a smell he can never put into words. His cock throbs against his stomach. His senses are assaulted with their smell, Alice's hands against his chest, her fingernails sliding against his hypersensitive skin, her loud gasps of ' _More'_ and their names against the shell of his ear, and Ryou's mouth against his, his teeth digging into the soft flesh of his lips.

Akira lifts Ryou's legs, the back of his thighs pressed against his shoulders. His hands shakily lather his cock with lotion before he presses the head of his length inside of Ryou with a grunt of anticipation

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Ryou whines, his dick hardening inside of Alice.

"So good," Alice squirms around Ryou, feeling the vibrations of his surprised and aroused gasps of the intrusion radiate inside of her with flourish.

With every thrust of Akira inside of Ryou, it causes her to bobble up and down more roughly on Ryou's dick. She whimpers, her teeth biting down against the sweat soaked night shirt that Ryou still wore, as she is rocked back and forth with every jostle by Akira and Ryou.

Alice chants their names, riding Ryou's dick with fervor and eagerly watch Akira's resolve crumble as he thrusts firmly in and out, his hips eager and steady in their tempo.. She is the first to cum, her whole body violently trembling before her vision explodes, first dark and then suddenly an array of bright multicolored lights.

She eventually regains consciously and feels Ryou's semi-hard cock inside of her, his arms like a warm vice around her. His breathing is haggard and satisfied behind her. Alice blearily looks forward and sees Akira's, sweat dripping down his forehead, his thrusts erratic, and his eyes focused on them both like they were the only thing is in this world that existed.

' _Beautiful_ ,' Alice thinks when Akira closes his eyes and presses close. He moans, an odd sound that is similar to their names as he loses himself inside of Ryou, his fingers entangled with hers.

…

She is warm.

Alice groans, her body pleasantly sore and aching. She wants to sleep except her stomach rumbles and says no.

She slowly opens her eyes. She can feel herself being watched.

She is resting atop of Akira, his firm chest her pillow. An arm is thrown over her back, warm and strong, and she knows it is Ryou's.

Alice glances down, her index finger slowly connecting the moles atop of Akira's chest. "I was thinking… we could start our own restaurant."

"As self-indulgent as ever, milady."

"You better put the work in, Alice."

She can feel their smiles. Amused and fond. A kiss is pressed against her back and forehead and she is reminded that she is loved.

Of snow (and many other things)

It's still dark outside when Alice wakes up.

The sky behind the window is deep and swarthy, and despite the fact she's lying in a huge unfamiliar bed in a godforsaken hotel room in Hokkaidō, the whole scenery outside somehow recalls the one she learned to love during her danish years. It's a nostalgic voice which calls her back to her childhood: the wind whooshing idly, loud voices coming from the nearby port, the quiet sound of waves crashing on the shore.

Judging by the flatness of the sky, she'd bet it's going to snow.

Alice blinks twice, taking a swift look around – the room isn't all black and gloomy: there is a warm glow coming from an half-open door, and the bathroom lamp sheds its golden light onto the cleanest carpet she'd ever seen.

It was Akira who insisted to leave the lights turned on, and even if he stubbornly refused to admit it, it was pretty clear that he didn't want to sleep in the dark. Ryou never liked it too, and Alice never understood why.

As the nosy little creature she was as a child, she loved to turn out the lights, temporarily losing the sense of sight in the blinding darkness of her room: the shape of her own things suddenly turned unfamiliar and therefore more attractive, and her eyes always needed some seconds to adjust to the sudden change.

It was like a game to her; she never feared it. She really can't tell what Ryou and Akira are afraid to see in the darkness, but it must have something to do with the fact they both grew up without their parents. Nights must be scary when you have no one looking after you.

Things, though, definitely changed: they're no longer alone. She slowly turns her head on her pillow to look towards them: Ryou is still sleeping on the other side of the mattress, ruffled hair all over his face; between his body and hers, Akira lies sound asleep, breathing softly through his parted lips.

Although she didn't expect this particular outcome, Alice is glad she requested the biggest bed in the whole hotel. Considering how crowded it is right now, hers was a wise decision indeed.

Throwing tantrums is one of her many talents: when her uncle chose this remote part of Hokkaidō for the régiment de cuisine, she simply stated that if she had to sleep in a lumpy bed then at least she expected to sleep in the biggest lumpy bed the hotel had to offer.

How she actually got it she doesn't know, but she strongly suspects it had something to do with Ryou standing there and looking all menacing and sinister behind her back – this has to be a talent too, Alice thinks. Anyway, the bed is huge and not lumpy at all: it's a comfortable western bed, just like the one she used to sleep in when she lived in Denmark, not unlike the one she now owns at home in Japan.

Still half-asleep, Alice stretches a bit, but four legs intertwined with hers make her movements rather limited. She practically can't move, but she doesn't complain either; the current situation is far too pleasing to even dare to lament about anything at all.

The régiment de cuisine is over. They won, and now she's lying in a gigantic comfortable bed with Ryou – which once was a common thing, but only happened when they were just kids – and Akira – and this is not a common thing _at all_. Not that she does care a bit about what is common and what is not: everything is going fine, just like she wanted it to be.

Well, Alice must admit she really has outstanding skills when it comes to get whatever she wants, speaking of which...she lets her eyes free to wander over their tangled bodies in the dim light, properly satisfied with the way their curves and angles display an embroidery of unprecedented beauty.

Ryou messily lies atop Akira, lily-white skin over golden; Alice easily identifies the pinkish print of her small hand on one of Ryou's perfect buttocks, and a pleasant tangle of something ties in her belly at the scattered memories of the night just passed by. Even if she can't turn her head to look down at her body, she's sure that this night-time meeting left some marks on her too – and she's perfectly fine with that.

To be honest, Alice is pretty sure they still have to properly figure out how to make love to other two people at the same time, but she's pretty confident they'll find out how easier and better it can be once they're practiced with that as they are with cooking.

One of them speaks her name in his sleep, and a flush of heat suddenly warms her cheeks. She's in love, and it feels like bleeding backwards.

Everything they did last night was hesitant, furious and exciting, and Alice could swear she never saw Ryou that much nervous and full of enthusiasm; even Akira – who constantly bragged about his cool head during their cooking battles – was so troubled that his hands trembled all along.

Actually, the whole thing had been more like an endless work of foreplay than proper sex, but Alice had enjoyed every second of it. She found out how good it was to be handled like the most precious thing in the world, and soon discovered how gentle Ryou could be or how soft Akira could sound.

It had felt like being kids again, discovering a whole new world made of laughter and kissing – a _lot_ of kissing, to be honest – and trembling hands and pleasure and _oh, oh gods where did you learn that?_ , and then for Alice it all ended with a magnificent breath of peace, her limbs falling back on earth in a puff of feathers.

Moreover, she had distinctly heard Ryou begging her not to stop in a little pleading voice. _Twice_.

Alice smiles with mischief, running a fingertip along Akira's pointy chin and thin lips. Scattered memories come to her again – and who would have known that could do such things with that smart mouth? Well, she and Ryou now know that for sure.

Akira moves closer, rolling out of Ryou's embrace and getting lost somewhere in her bosom, weak fingers lazily wrapping around her fair skin; he smiles in his sleep, murmuring something in what seems to be Indian – one of the many things she and Ryou don't know about, but there will be plenty of time for that too.

"Methi, just a pinch." he whispers, snuggling deeper against the flesh of her neck. "Stir, stir." Alice hasn't got a clue of what it should mean; she draws back a little to look at him, expecting him to be awake, but Akira is still deep asleep. Beyond him, Ryou softly grunts and cuddles up against his back.

Alice tries hard not to giggle, reaching a hand to gently stroke their hair. They're unbelievably different even when it comes to sleep, she considers looking at Ryou's messy tangle of black hair and then at Akira's fair strands, neatly tied in a loose ponytail.

How he managed to tie it up, Alice can't tell, for she distinctly recalls Ryou leaving Akira's hair loose on his shoulders and hungrily throwing the hair tie in a soon-forgotten corner of the room before dragging the both of them on the mattress.

She spent a lot of time with her hands in that hair, too; to see it perfectly brushed and tidy gives her an odd feeling, as if the night just passed along wasn't at last more than a precious dream.

The fury is now gone, it surely is, but there's something in that tangle of limbs and feelings which really makes sense, and Alice is somehow comforted by that. She shuts her eyes, wondering about the possibility of slipping unnoticed out of bed to take a shower – now _that_ would be a great idea, since her body is still sticky and aching a bit – when a hand moves on her pillow, walking towards her on lean white fingers.

"Milady?"

Ryou's barely audible whisper reminds her of their first years together: he had to wake her up every morning, and every morning she pretended to be still asleep just to postpone the moment she had to crawl out of bed. He always found out, though, and her efforts to annoy him usually ended up in a cooking battle for breakfast.

She keeps her eyes closed, curious to see if she's able to fool him after all this time; Ryou's index finger irritatingly pokes her cheek, but after a handful of seconds he seems to surrender, retiring his hand from her pillow.

"Hey." another voice says, and the hand between her breasts slightly moves. Alice wonders if she could fool Akira too, and she just remains silent for the rest of the time, even when someone stretches and dumps a pointy ankle in her leg, making her swear and curse inside her mind.

"Hayama. You awake?" she hears Ryou mumble, his voice still sandy from sleep.

Akira lightly snorts. "I said "hey", what makes you think I'm not awake?"

Even without looking at him, Alice is quite sure that Ryou is rolling his eyes. She can feel some slight movements, as if they're adjusting their position. Akira gently removes his hand from her bosom and yawns, his body shaking a bit against Alice's.

"Did you sleep well?" she hears him say. "This must be the most comfortable bed in whole bed history."

"Mh."

Akira snorts. ""Mh"? Is that all you have to say?"

"It's a mattress. What else am I supposed to say?"

"Well, let's see..." Akira says in a mocking tone. ""Milady asked for the best bed, Milady had the best bed", something like that."

He totally sounds like Ryou, all slushed and lazy, and Alice fights hard not to burst into laughter, now all enticed by the prospect of listening to their lovely nonsense a bit more.

Ryou mmphs at him. "This is just how things work." He yawns. "You'd better learn that as soon as possible."

"Dear god, you all just spoil her too much." Akira complains, and Alice can't honestly argue with that.

"Rumor has it you really like to please her too." Ryou snaps back, and Alice can't honestly argue with that either.

She can feel Akira fidget a bit beside her. "Well, rumors may be true." He sounds embarrassed and strangely goofy, with a prideful turn in his voice that reminds her of the very first time she saw him cook. "Now mind your own business and give me some space. You're actually heavy, you knew that?"

Ryou doesn't answer; there's just a lazy chuckle, a little shift in their position and then an odd squishy sound that makes Alice's belly quiver deep from the inside. She half-opens her eyes just in time to get a glimpse of their kiss, fiery and swift and just a bit clumsy, hurrying to shut them closed when Akira and Ryou seem to part.

There are whispers she can barely hear, and then the wet squishy sound again; after that, it takes just a few seconds before Akira sleepily asks: "Alice?"

"Sleeping." Ryou says back. "Or pretending to do so. I really can't tell, she's gotten damn good at it."

They shift again, most probably turning towards her; Alice knows they're studying her face trying to figure out if she's really sleeping, eyes as sharp as daggers to her still face. So she strives to stay as motionless as possible, trying hard not to smile and waiting for their verdict as if it were just another form of their cooking battles.

"She's actually sleeping, isn't she?" Akira whispers after a while, lightly tickling her cheek with his warm breath.

"Holy shit, Hayama," Ryou softly chuckles, "you _really_ _are_ an idiot."

It is impossible for Alice to stay quiet after that, and suddenly her concentration blows up in a burst of laughter; she swiftly rolls on her side, finally opening her eyes to meet theirs. It is a shame indeed that the light is so dim, she thinks, for she would really like to see their proper colour.

"Good morning, my pretties."

Akira looks unconvinced. "So you actually weren't sleeping, were you?"

"Not at all!" she playfully hums, stretching on his body, her breasts pushing on his naked chest.

Akira dimly squirms, his face flushing red as Ryou leans towards her to give her a small kiss. They're probably crushing Akira with all that weight on him, Alice manages to think before her head becomes all light and liquid and thoughts flow away into Ryou's warm mouth. It came unexpected, and Alice loves to be surprised.

"Good morning, Milady." Ryou greets her, falling on his back again, next to a ridiculously rigid Akira. "Was the bed as comfortable as you wished? Did you sleep well?"

"Mmh, kind of..." Alice complains. He asked her these same question every morning since they got to the hotel; it's interesting to see how these words become much more meaningful after the night just passed on. "This bed is wonderful, but I'm afraid that the two of you kept pushing me in a corner, and now as a result my whole back hurts."

"You're one to talk!" Akira exclaims, ignoring her pout. "I surely wasn't the one sleeping in star-fish position in the middle of the bed for the most part of the night. Maybe it was you, Ryou?"

"It was not." Ryou raises an arm towards the ceiling, looking at his own hand. Alice wonders if it feels sticky as her inner thighs do. "Your sleeping habits display a rather selfish demeanor, Milady." he politely adds.

Alice answers with an innocent smile. "Even admitting such an eventuality, I can't see why this should prevent me from asking for a massage."

Ryou doesn't answer. He rolls over Akira's body and grabs Alice by the shoulders, gently making her lie on her stomach.

"I'll never get used to hear you speak so politely." Akira says, his forehead now close to hers. She's so distracted by his gleaming green eyes that it takes her a few seconds to understand that he's talking to Ryou.

"Apparently you're the only living person with the dubious privilege of bringing out his berserk mode without any effort." she cheerfully says, while Ryou sits on her bottom and begins to inspect her back with long warm fingertips. His knees are sharp and strong against her hips, and she can't help but wonder how would it feel just to have him like th-

"Hey!" she cries, a stroke of intense pain right in the middle of her back.

"I'm sorry, Milady." Ryou lazily apologizes. "You're a bit stiff between your shoulder blades."

"Well, it hurt. Pay more attention now." Alice snaps back, playing offended. She raises a bit and turns to watch him straight in the face, her mouth ready to provoke him just for the sake of arguing. "By the way, one could say that my back isn't the only stiff thing in the room, is it?"

Ryou rudely pushes her down on the bed. "Just shut up and enjoy your bloody massage."

"And here it comes my taste of berserk mode too." Alice playfully hums, placing her head on her pillow again with a big smile.

Akira stares at them in awe, eagerly drinking every word or gesture between her and Ryou; he looks like he's missing something, but this is another thing that time will teach, Alice is sure of it.

They stay like this for a while, Ryou slightly rolling back and forth over Alice, his thumbs digging in the soft flesh of her nape, rubbing and massaging her sore muscles; when the hard knot of nerves in her back finally begins to melt, a shameless moan of relief escapes her mouth.

Akira giggles.

"What?" Alice and Ryou simultaneously snap at him, making him giggle even more. It's a small, curious and rather unfamiliar sound, Alice considers, but she finds it pleasing nevertheless.

"It's nothing." he chuckles, running a hand across his own face. "That sound you just made, Alice. It's just...I was just thinking."

"I know what you were thinking of, you naughty boy." Alice chirps lightly. "Any consideration you'd like to share?"

Akira frowns. "Such as...?"

Ryou snorts, slowly rolling down Alice's body and falling back on the blankets, seemingly unbothered by his own nudity. "Hayama. Your nose may be incredible, but your brain is fucking slow."

"Ryou! Manners!" Alice reproaches him.

"She wants to know if you regret something." he goes on, his voice flat as if they were talking about the weather. "Now tell her something nice so that we can go back to sleep. Otherwise," he adds in front of Akira's rather astonished silence, "If you don't say a word you'll never hear the end of it, I can assure you."

" _Go back to sleep_?" Alice is nearly out of her mind. "Ryou, what the hell-"

Ryou shrugs. "You two completely worn me out tonight. I need to sleep more."

"But I'm hungry!" Alice pouts, crossing her arms over her naked breasts.

"Sweet Jesus," Ryou whines, "In the morning you are so lazy I nearly have to drag you out of bed, why in hell you chose _today_ to be so annoyingly awake?!"

"I thought you learned how to properly speak to a lady!" she yells. "Now, get up and fetch me some food!"

"I don't regret anything we did, just for the record." Akira steps in, almost unnoticed.

Ryou rolls on his stomach, pressing his face on the blankets. "I will speak properly, then: Milady, I request to sleep three more hours before thinking of any breakfast."

"Three hours?" Alice pouts. "You must be joking!"

"Three hours _at least!_ " Ryou points out, his words muffled by the blankets and his manners forgotten again. "If you're that hungry just put some clothes on and go eat something in the damn hotel restaurant."

"Ryou! You really are the worst aide on-"

"Now shut up and be quiet, the both of you!" The unexpected sound of Akira's voice is enough to make them suspend their fight; he doesn't come across their bickering very often, so this is a first too. "It's 5 and fucking 30 in the morning, do you want to wake the whole hotel?! Behave!"

The room gets suddenly quiet.

"I didn't know you could swear too." Alice comments, deeply amused. "I'm glad you don't regret it, by the way." she adds with a big smile, placing a kiss on his surprised lips. It's good to see that cinnamon skin can flush too.

"Anyway, breakfast is served from 7 a.m." Akira explains, trying to put himself together. "I'm afraid you won't get your food any soon, Alice."

Alice pouts so much that her face hurts. "But I'm hungry."

"She's always like that when she's hungry." Ryou mockingly whispers to Akira, and Alice would like to bite him for that. "You've got to see her when she insists to train with me. After we're done, she completely freaks out until I give her some food. One would never guess who's the true berserker here, trust me."

"Such a spoiled little brat." Akira comments, gently stroking her nape with his fingertips.

"And a professional complainer as well." Ryou adds, reaching out to fondle her hair. "Now tell her something nice, just like I taught you."

Akira smiles. "I'm sorry, Alice."

"No, you're not." she mutters, rolling out of bed and wandering on the floor in search of her clothes.

"What are you doing now?" Ryou asks, a note of amusement in his voice.

"I'm a cook, and a damn good one." Alice dramatically proclaims. "I'm taking control of the kitchen down there – I'm a true Nakiri, after all."

"You won't do anything like that." Ryou says back, suddenly serious, pushing the blankets aside and standing on his feet. "Go back to bed."

"But Ryou, I swear I'm going to eat a fucking chair if I don't get some food _now_."

He doesn't speak a single word, collecting his clothes from the floor. Alice is just about to point out that he just wore Akira's underwear instead of his own pants when he finally speaks.

"I'll go." he says, and before she can even try to protest he grabs her arms to close her mouth with a long, wet, angry kiss. "Just don't you dare to say again I'm the worst aide on Earth." he adds, smacking one last kiss on her temple before rushing out of the room, closing the door behind his back before she can even try to stop him.

Since when did Ryou become so touchy? She didn't mean to be ungrateful. She has to tell him when he comes back. Things definitely changed over the years, but even through the rage and bitterness and frustration of their expulsion from school, she knows Ryou never ceased to take care of her needs.

"Come back to bed." Akira quietly says after a while.

"But I'm no sleepy anymore." she replies, coming near the window. The quarrel with Ryou had something awaken in her heart, a bursting feeling she can't name for sure.

"I know, but I don't want you to catch a cold."

Alice doesn't answer, her cheerfulness seemingly vanished. She looks out of the window, a burning feeling right in the middle of her chest. Hunger, she thinks, but she knows that food would never fill that hole. She's thinking of Denmark now, of her first months with Ryou. Things seemed to come so easily then.

The snow is now falling at a slow pace, enveloping everything in its silent embrace. Once she would have been comforted by its peaceful presence; the feelings she gets now, though, are a completely different matter.

"Is there something wrong?" Akira asks, his voice low and gentle; he now sits in the bed, sheets pooling around his hips, his skin made even darker by contrast. She feared that things would be clumsy now that they're alone, but everything between them feels right just as it was a minute ago.

"I'm just looking at snow! Why do you ask?" she says back, faking a cheerful voice.

Akira remains silent for a while, enough to make Alice think that he will not answer. But then he speaks, his words smooth and full of care. "You look...wistful. I've never seen such a look upon your face."

This is the moment, Alice thinks, that she knows her love for sure. Because love isn't about sex, isn't about bickering or cuddling or sleeping together – not even about _cooking_ together, even if it's the three of them involved.

Love is about being vulnerable in front of someone else, and being fine with it, knowing that we won't be hurt.

"Snow makes me feel nostalgic." she finally explains, eyeing a big snowflake twirling just outside the thick glass. "And after all that happened tonight, I can't help but think about my childhood. Ryou and I always had our curious balance, but now things are necessarily going to change."

"Change isn't always a bad thing, you know." Akira replies. "We're growing up, things can't stay the same forever."

"Yes. And I don't want to be a spoiled brat anymore." she blurts out, fast enough not to stop herself from saying so. "Behaving like that helped me survive as a child through that Erina-centric universe, but-" Alice suddenly stops, a hint of guilt straight to her stomach. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be indelicate. Professor Shiomi told me that your childhood was terrible. I surely wasn't suggesting that-"

"Jun really needs to stop talking of my business when I'm not there to stop her." Akira interrupts her, but his voice is so affectionate that Alice almost smiles. "Still, I don't want to lie: she told you the truth." He takes a deep breath. "I don't even know who my parents were, or why they abandoned me, yet I was there with my special nose and everything. I was poor, so poor I often had to search through the garbage can to find some food."

Alice's hands clench into fists. Ryou told her many things about his own past, but she'll never get used to all the struggles he's been through as a child. Things are no different with Akira, it seems. And she thought that life was unjust just because she had a child prodigy as a cousin.

She's lost so deep in her thoughts that she doesn't hear Akira sneak out of bed and come near until she hears his voice next to her. "Don't pity me, for now I am well and happy; Jun saved my life, just as you did with Ryou."

"I'm pretty sure that Ryou would beg to differ." she snorts, but Akira doesn't laugh. Instead, he passes his arms around her waist, pulling her closer from behind.

"I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't." Akira corrects her, caressing her side with a thumb. "Now please, go on. I would love to hear more about your childhood."

And then Alice breaks. She tells him everything: how she decided to leave Japan, the joy of learning new things, the happiness of being reunited again with her parents. She tells him of Ryou, of the long days spent together battling and cooking, and then his first win, her tears, his wordless pledge to be always at her side. She tells him how she misses the different kind of height, as her mother always says, of the skies of Northern Europe.

Akira doesn't speak, not even once; he just stands there, holding her from behind, skin against skin, the clumsiness of before suddenly washed away by this river of words. He just laughs once – when Alice tells him of the first time she met Ryou. The rest of the time he's quiet, like a solid rock grounding her to the Earth.

"Sometimes I feel so stupid, you know." Alice finally says. "Why, I ask myself, why did I choose to split my heart in two, so that I will never fully belong to Japan nor to Denmark?"

She doesn't expect him to answer, but this time he speaks. "This happened because you are so kind to allow two countries to call themselves your home."

Alice laughs, leaning back to place her nape on his shoulder and look at him sideways. "This may easily be the nicest thing someone ever said to me. Such a pity that it is also the most false."

"It is not. You see, when Ryou lectured me during the Banquet Moon Festival, the thing went on for hours. We argued a lot about you, and at a certain point he said a thing that really impressed me."

Alice snorts. "Let me guess: he said I'm the worst master ever seen on Earth."

"He said you are the most generous person he ever met in his shitty life." Akira shuts her up. "His words, not mine. Yes, he was shouting and wearing the damn headband when he said that, and I didn't take it seriously. After all, I had just blamed you for being too selfish...but now I know what he had meant then."

"Do you?" Alice asks, her voice much more little and shaky that she'd like it to be.

"I do. We both do, Ryou and I." he confirms, kissing the side of her head. The gesture comes naturally, as if they were used to do it for a long time.

"I didn't choose between you two because I want you both." she adds. "Isn't it the most selfish thing I could do?"

Akira softly laughs. "Why do you have to make it so hard to give you a compliment?"

"Maybe because I feel that this compliment isn't appropriate for me."

He holds her a bit tighter. "Then Ryou and I are lucky for we have plenty of time to make you change your mind."

"We'll see." Alice quietly answers, hopelessly trying to hold back a smile. "Now tell me something else, let's change this tedious topic."

"Mh." Akira stays quiet for a while. Alice stretches a hand behind her to gently stroke the back of his head. It takes a while before he quietly murmurs a word. "Jasmine."

"You must have mistaken me for someone else, my lord." Alice playfully replies.

"It's not that, you feather-head!" Akira chuckles against her ear. "The first scent I thought about when we first met, as you asked tonight. I'm telling you now. It's jasmine."

It was her hair lotion. And he remembered...! Alice relaxes in his embrace, the tangle of feelings easing a bit in her stomach.

"Jasmine." a voice repeats. Ryou walks in with a large wooden bowl in his arms, closing the door behind his back with a light kick. His mouth curls in a smirk. "As white and clingy as Milady, how appropriate."

Alice is just about to snap back, but Akira is faster. "Sashimi for breakfast, then."

"The kitchen was closed, and there wasn't anybody to threaten to have some food down there." Ryou answers, placing the basket onto the blankets. He slightly trembles, and there's some snow in his hair. "Such a good fortune we're that close to the port."

Akira leaves Alice free from his embrace to go lifting an edge of the piece of cloth which covers the basket. "Where did you find that butter and those loafs of bread?"

"I met a kind fisherman, that's all. There's also a hot flask of green tea, but I drank some of it along the road just to make sure I didn't freeze."

"Ryou, I-" Alice starts, but he swipes her words away with a hand.

"Don't say it. I went because I wanted to." Ryou grins. "After all, it's been a while since I stopped following your ridiculous orders."

"How rude." Akira comments, taking Alice by the hand and dragging her to the bed.

"I hope Ryou didn't threaten anyone to have that fish, unlike he did when we were kids." Alice says to him with a big smile, hoping to annoy the other boy.

Ryou, though, answers with a boastful smile. "There was no need to. You see, the fisherman actually was a fisherwoman. The second I told her that I was in search of food for my hungry girlfriend, she was already filling my arms with every sort of food. She even gave me some chopsticks."

 _Girlfriend._ For some reason, the word gets stuck in her head as carved in stone. Alice throws herself onto him, careless of his cold clothes and hands, dangerously close to say things she didn't even dare to think of since a while ago.

Ryou smiles against her cheek. "Lately snow has a tendency to make me feel nostalgic. I thought Milady would have appreciated a breakfast close to the ones we had when we lived in Europe. "

"Thank you." she whispers, and suddenly all is complete again.

"It seems you forgot to tell her that you had a hungry boyfriend waiting for you as well. Should I consider myself offended by that?" Akira sharply comments behind them, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Well, you could have come with me and lent me a hand." Ryou snaps back, reaching for the blankets and crawling back into bed again. "On second thought, it was better this way. You're maddeningly slow with your knife: we barely would have come back in time for lunch."

Alice watches them sit under the blankets, one fully clothed and the other shamelessly naked, still bickering and quarrelling about whose knife technique is actually the best between the two of them, and for the first time in her life she feels blessed.

"Please, Milady." Ryou tells her. "This cold made me hungry too."

"Yes, come with us. After all, it was you who were hungry, wasn't?" Akira playfully adds, reaching out to catch her hand.

"Don't rush, you two!" Alice commands, crawling on the blankets to take a seat between them. She kisses them both on the cheek, then reaches out to look for her chopsticks. "After all, we have all the time in the world."


	6. Chapter 6

Reflection

At first, Captain Aizen had been surprised how much distress the idea of dispatching Lieutenant Hinamori had caused him. He had molded her to him so perfectly. He was the sun around which her world revolved. There was no way she would be able to function without him when the time came for him to depart from Soul Society. As an act of kindness and mercy - she had earned that much from him - he would have her killed so she would not need to bear a world without meaning, a world without him.

Aizen had not counted on the fact that he had molded her perfectly to fit _with him_ and that the loss could be felt from both sides. It was a rare miscalculation on his part, if indeed he could call it a mistake. He was well aware of the pleasure he took in her company. As her mentor and friend, he shared his books with her, training up her mind and teaching her hands the elegance of calligraphy. Hinamori possessed a sharp mind and a clever wit. Their discussions of poetry filled many a pleasant afternoon, and Aizen could not but help admire her fine wrist as she stroked her brush on the white paper, making characters that were almost as elegant as his own.

As her captain, he sparred with Hinamori on the training grounds, honing her into a skilled warrior. Despite her gentle demeanor and slight frame, Hinamori was fierce when she unleashed Tobiume, often laying her larger opponents to waste. Her swordplay was good. Her kidou was beyond compare, at least if he did not compare it to his.

Hinamori might suffer in comparison to Aizen - it was his lonely burden to know that no one could compare, but they were not so very different in some ways. The captain and his lieutenant both had a hidden side lurking beneath their kindly demeanors. To many, Lieutenant Hinamori was quaintly old-fashioned and demure. Undeniably powerful, she still inspired protection and pity in her colleagues and subordinates. Little Momo, such a good girl she was.

Hinamori used people's perceptions of her, consciously or no, to make them underestimate her. In battle, she lured the enemy in with her sweet fragility before making the killing blow. It was not unlike his own power of hypnosis in its way, letting people see her for who they thought she was. The saw the slight frame, the sweet girlish face as tender as a flower petal, and they made their assumption, often to their regret.

To be fair, she _was_ sweet and tender. Her viciousness arose directly from her loving nature, a delicious, primal contradiction. There were a very small number who knew her very well, Abarai and Kira, for example, her classmates who had trained and battled with her, they had a better idea that little Momo had a temper, and in the name of justice, she was not afraid to use it.

When Hinamori perceived an injustice, she was no respecter of rank or persons and leapt to the defense of those without defender. Aizen had to smooth over relations with his fellow captains and various members of the noble clans on more than one occasion after his lieutenant refused a direct order she felt would put her team into danger or told off an arrogant nobleman, but she co-led the squad with a gentle authority that commanded respect as well as the love of her subordinates.

Hinamori had grown into an ideal lieutenant. And an ideal woman.

She had her flaws, of course. She loved too deeply to be able to separate herself from those which she held dear. She would not be able to follow him, even if he so wished it. However, she was willing to break the rules for what she believed. Aizen thinks that she would probably burn the Seireitei to the ground if she found a cause great enough. He was confident that when the time came to unleash her upon Soul Society for his cause, the destruction would be magnificent.

He thinks he might love her for that.

And that was not a bad thing at all. To have such a powerful desire for her meant he must become powerful enough to overcome that instinct and grow beyond. And he was so close.

Momo Hinamori was a very good match for the man she thought Sosuke Aizen was, and while she certainly did not know the true Aizen, the man she knew was not altogether an illusion. To some degree, he was the captain she loved, and he could not deny that he would miss her when the time came.

When Aizen considered his departure from Soul Society, it crossed his mind that perhaps he did not want her to live without _him_. She had her friends, Abarai and Kira, and the repulsive little prodigy, Hitsugaya. They would rally, of course, to support her after his betrayal, but she deserved better than that. He wanted to spare her the degradation of her friends' pity, and goodness knows, it would be kindness to dispatch Hitsugaya in the process. As it was now, Momo already had to suffer the moralistic child-captain hovering over her like an overprotective grandmother. He would be practically humping her leg as soon as Aizen was gone.

Yes, Aizen would allow her the chance to die in glory - defending the memory of her Captain. She was a brave, gentle flower straining toward the sun. Aizen would pluck her and allow her to be set above the others, beautiful and loyal in death.

Still, the instinctual drive that pulled Momo to him was harder to overcome than he thought. He did not want to be the one to deliver the killing blow, thus the complicated plot to lead to her death. A difficult challenge meant greater growth, of course, but he was still sometimes surprised that he found Momo to be the one thing he regretted leaving behind.

Because of this regret, he congratulated himself for keeping Gin so close. Gin had a primary function in the master plan;he was the true threat of death, ever smiling over Aizen's shoulder. He was curious as to when and how Gin would make his move to destroy him, knowing that ultimate threat to his life would be necessary for his evolution. Beyond that, however, Gin was also a useful reminder of what happened when one did not make a break with emotional attachment.

Gin's own weakness was Rangiku. She always had been. Gin was a very clever fellow, but in this regard, he was as foolish as most men, unable to overcome this bond of love. Gin would never be able to destroy Rangiku, and thus, she held him back from true evolution.

Momo would never do that to her captain. In a way, in her weakness, she was his strength. As he felt himself stirred to protect her when she was threatened in battle or when genuine affection warmed him when he saw her smiling face waiting for him in the captain's office, stacks of paperwork and two cups of hot tea on the desk before her, it only made it harder to let her go. The harder it was to leave her, the stronger he would ultimately become. If he could deny even her, what could he not do?

So whenever Aizen's gaze lingered a bit too long on the curve of Momo's neck, watching the silky tendrils of hair escaping her bun and tickling the tender skin of her nape, Gin's knowing grin would remind Aizen of his higher purpose. He would overcome them all.

Even so, he could not help but take her into his bed, playing the reluctant suitor, the shy intellectual overcome, to his great shock and dismay, by his sudden passion for his lieutenant. Momo revelled in the taboo, the forbidden nature of a relationship between captain and subordinate adding a delicious thrill to their romance. In the midst of their couplings, she was far more likely to moan out his title than his name.

"Captain!" she would sigh, her softness and wet heat clinging to him, urging him forward.

"Oh, Lieutenant Hinamori," the captain would breathe into her ear and capture the sweet lobe between his teeth. Aizen would feel her pulse around him, taken over the edge at the sound of such formality on his lips. Her delight in the power imbalance would finish him off faster than the actual physical delight of their joined bodies.

Other times, though, and there were many other times, she would call his name, quietly and with authority. Flat on his back, he would gaze up at his lieutenant rising above him, and he would quake with a sensation that felt a little like terror. Her eyes took on the same glow as when she cast a kidou spell, but there was no incantation uttered, nothing but his name on her lips.

"Sosuke," she would say solemnly, this young woman with her slim waist and small breasts lit by moonlight, moving slowly and steadily, her heat flush with his. "What do you want, Sosuke?"

Sometimes he was not quite sure what she was asking him. On a purely animal level, he wanted exactly what she was doing - her flesh joined with his, his hands and mouth on her skin. He had no words to answer her, but he met those glowing eyes, seeing her mouth fall open as she drew a shaky breath, feeling her pleasure rise.

Other times it seemed like she was hoping he would speak of some insipid future together, of a home and children. But, no. No, maybe in the daylight when she called him Captain, admiration caressing the word, she was imagining him as the head of their own family. This intimacy of his name meant something different to her.

Momo bent down, her breasts brushing his chest, her knees on either side of his hips, keeping the rhythm steady. She kissed his mouth and looked him in the eye, looking into his soul. There was no admiration in her gaze then. No judgement either.

"Sosuke?" she asked again.

He stared deep into her dark eyes, willing her to understand, imagining how her mind would break if she should realize the truth of him, yet hoping, somewhere in the lonely darkness of his soul, hoping she might see him for all he was.

"To be free," he gasped into her mouth, "To come. To become!"

He was spouting nonsense, but something in those dark, red-lit eyes flickered with comprehension, and he was undone. Sosuke threw back his head, roaring as the pleasure ripped through him, gripping her tightly, and pressing his fingers into the flesh of her hips and buttocks hard enough to bruise.

Momo kissed him again, riding him until his hips stopped bucking beneath her and his hands relaxed their painful grip, moving to gently stroke the soft skin of her thighs and calves. She quivered beneath his hands.

She slowly slid off to lay beside him, her head on his chest. He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. All was quiet except for their breathing. He would miss her. There was no doubt about that.

"I think I understand, Sōsuke," she said quietly, her hand tracing a pattern on his chest, unconsciously weaving her binding spell - his heart to hers.

"Do you?" He asked, staring at the ceiling. He didn't really think so, but what if she did? Such understanding would not change any element of his plan. If anything, it only assured him of his eventual success.

No. It would not change anything, but later when he was between her thighs again, pressing kisses to hot smooth skin, he looked up to see her dark eyes meet his with a knowing smile before she shut them tight, her mouth contorting with ecstasy.

Aizen's plans remained unchanged, but pain bloomed in his chest when he watched her writhing under his lips and hands, as fragile and ephemeral as the pink blossoms in spring. Momo was so very _becoming_ in the moonlight.

Visit

"The judgment will now be decreed! Ex-5th Division Captain Aizen Sousuke is sentenced to the lowest underground prison level, the 8th prison "Avici" for no less than 18,800 years!"

"I see. Beings of your caliber decreeing "judgement" on me, is it? I find that somewhat ironic."

"Traitor! Don't get cocky just because you're immortal. Bind his eyes and mouth at once! Raise his sentence up to 20,000 years!

"You know I can't simply let you go down there. You certainly understand, don't you, Hinamori?"

The young woman nodded. She feared the next question, feared the answer she couldn't give but which would still be obvious to everyone.

"I need to know why you want to see him in the first place. After everything he has done to you. He almost killed you twice."

Hinamori remained silent. She had only just recovered from the organ regeneration which had barely managed to save her life. On top of that she'd been promoted to Captain.

Captain Yamamoto shook his head. "If you don't know yourself why you want to see him I can't allow it. I'm sorry, girl."

She bit her lip. An invisible barrier inside her was holding back everything she wanted to say. The words were there, right inside her head, screaming in her ears, but when she opened her mouth she couldn't say a thing.

"Please move on. Forget about that traitor. The man we all thought we knew never existed."

Her eyes filled with tears, blurring the room. She blinked them away, took a deep breath and looked hard at the Captain of the first Division. The barrier crumbled. "I need to know why."

"Why? That' the question you want to ask? I'm not sure if you'll like the answer. If he answers at all."

"I have to try."

Yamamoto nodded. He could probably see how frail she was, mind and body. Hinamori herself knew that what her former Captain might say had the potential to break her. But she just had to try.

"Please wait outside for a moment while I make a decision."

Relieved, Hinamori left the room and sat down on the chair outside. She was still a little exhausted from her recovery and dozed off in the warm summer air.

A serene smile. The taste of green tea, bitter and strong. The damp smell of his hair, like rain. Fingers touching her hips, supporting her small weight. She didn't know what the look in his brown eyes meant, he seemed so hungry, devouring her, licking his lips. A careful bite. A mark. She was his possession.

And then: searing pain. Twice. The warm feeling of blood. Blue eyes staring at her in shock.

"Shiro-chan ... why ... "

"Captain Hinamori?"

The voice woke her up in an instant. An unknown shinigami stood in front of her. He was tall and muscular, probably from the 11th Division. He looked like the type who enjoyed working with Zaraki Kenpachi. His uniform barely covered his chest.

"I am here to accompany you to the 8th prison "Avici" to speak to Aizen Sousuke. By demand of Captain Commander Yamamoto the prisoner will be allowed to speak if you wish it."

Hinamori nodded and stood up to face the man who once meant everything to her.

The room was brightly lit making Hinamori blink. It was painful to keep her eyes open and it took her a few minutes to adjust. When she was finally able to see she almost wished she wasn't.

Hinamori hadn't known what to expect. There were rumors but few people had been imprisoned on such a low level and lived to see the end of their sentence. She knew that the place was protected by all kinds of kido spells and strong guards. Visitors faced a strict search routine and weren't allowed to take anything with them. Her escort wouldn't leave her side for the time she spent in this cell.

Of course she hadn't seen Aizen during his short trial. She had been fighting for her life with the help of the 4th Division.

He couldn't have expected any visitors so his reaction to the two people entering his cell had been slow, unbelieving. Hinamori opened her eyes just in time to see him turn around. If it was at all possible he seemed even more arrogant than before. His lips were thin and his skin paler than ever. At first he looked surprised but it lasted mere seconds. He was curious, angry and frustrated. His mind seemed to be spinning with the expression on his face changing every few seconds.

Finally he regained control and the old smirk was back, the one she hated.

He was dressed in simple black clothes, a stark contrast to the white, bare cell which contained nothing but a chair, a table and a futon. There was no indication of time or temperature. Although he had already been down here for 17 months he was visibly out of place.

The spell that stopped him from talking had been lifted. A fact he seemed to be aware of as he said: "Well, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"This will be your only pleasure for the next 20,000 years, so listen closely and make the best of it."

"Why so aggressive, Captain Hinamori?" he sneered.

"I have a question."

"Only one?" Aizen lifted one eyebrow and walked over to her. The man next to Hinamori tensed. "Please, I'm not going to harm her." Aizen spread his hands to show he meant no harm but barely audibly he added "Again.".

"I want to know why."

"Why I betrayed Soul Society? Or why I betrayed you? What do you want to hear? A sob story about my horrible past that turned me into a horrible person? Come on, Hinamori, you have seen my true self. There is nothing left to tell. I had a brilliant plan that failed. Now I have 20,000 years to think up a new plan."

"I want to know why you hate me so much."

His eyes narrowed. "Hate you? You have been very useful to me so why should you be under the impression that I hate you? Because I tried to kill you?"

"You didn't just try to kill me. You tried to destroy me. Answer my question."

He burst out laughing. "You are becoming like me, little girl. So manipulative now that you're finally in control." He took another step in her direction and the guard tensed. Hinamori could smell her former Captain's hair and body. The same as usual. How?

When he continued speaking he had lowered his voice yet again. "But I bet you're still thinking of me, aren't you? I made you become like this. I'm the one who made you scream out my name. You're probably still doing that."

"You'd have to ask Shiro-chan for that kind of information."

It was a lie but for a second, he looked taken aback. The notion that he'd been replaced made him uncomfortable. "Oh, please. He is hardly a man. But I'm sure he noticed you weren't entirely inexperienced. And that there was only one possible teacher."

Aizen smirked. She knew the look in his eyes. Angry. Hungry. When he'd looked at her like that he had never shown mercy. It meant a long, hot night and a day of feeling sore but happy to cause such emotions in him.

"I'm not here to chat about the past. Answer my question."

"I'm sorry, I got carried away thinking of you and me. Of course I will grant you your wish, seeing as you made such an effort to come here. It was your weakness that made me hate you. You willingly threw yourself at me, followed my every order, offered yourself on a fucking plate. You were pathetic, begging to be used over and over again. Always smiling, always eager to please. The thought of it sickens me."

Aizen turned away. His broad shoulders tensed under the thin shirt.

"I don't think that's all. It's because I made you feel something for me, isn't it?"

She saw him clench his fists. He probably felt like punching her but of course he wouldn't. He didn't say a word for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally faced her again he was pokerfaced but Hinamori could tell that he was angry.

"So, you're here because you want me to confirm your little illusion? That I loved you? That you are the woman who made the villain show his true feelings? Are you really that dumb? Do you really think you know me, little girl?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then you're wrong." Without a warning Aizen punched out the guard next to her. He groaned and fell on the floor unconscious. With no protector to stop him Aizen grabbed Hinamori and pushed her up against the wall.

"How dare you come down here?" His eyes were mere slits, his hair hanging wildly in his face, only a few inches from hers. "How dare you defy death again and again just to come here and taunt me?"

"That wasn't my intention."

"Then don't pretend you've changed." In one swift motion he ripped the Captain's haori from her back and pinned her against the wall again. "And don't pretend you're fucking that loser Hitsugaya. You are mine."

Hinamori tried to catch her breath. Aizen was out of control but she knew that a guard would show up any minute now to check on her. "It seems that it's now you who is obsessed with me, Aizen. It's really amazing what this place does to people."

Aizen looked like he was about to kill her. But suddenly he seemed to change his mind. He stepped back, aware of what he'd just done. For the first time in her life she felt sorry for him.

She picked up her haori and straightened her clothes.

The door was opening behind her and the room flooded with guards taking down the former Captain of the fifth devision. He showed no signs of resistance lying on the ground and staring up at her.

"I'm sorry it had to end this way."


End file.
